1979, Manager Kim is Inheriting Dictatorship! - Chapter 83



Only Krnovel

Episode 83

Representative Min asks back with a very surprised expression.

“Are you saying that we should hold the election without the local council altogether?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I misspoke.”

Representative Min Jeong-gi then says, “That’s right, then,” and feels relieved for a moment.

But at what I said next, Representative Min Jeong-gi looked even more surprised than before.

“Rather than excluding them from this election, how about excluding the basic councils from Korea’s local autonomy system?”

“Mr. President… Are you serious… … ?”

“Have you ever seen me joke about something like this?”

Representative Min Jeong-gi shakes his head strongly.

“There are already so many candidates who are about to leave! Absolutely not!”

“Isn’t it because of the qualification issues of those candidates that Representative Min came to see me?”

“That, that is… … .”

Representative Min can’t forget what he said.

“It was a mess. Drinking, fraud, violence. I thought I had swapped my resume with some inmate.”

Representative Min bows his head.

Ultimately, it is my responsibility as the party leader to nominate this kind of candidate.

“I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.”

“It’s okay. I didn’t call you here to say anything to Representative Min.”

I took a sip of the coffee on the table and continued talking.

“Oh, of course, I’m not saying that we should exclude the basic council forever. If Korea becomes more accustomed to this local autonomy system and people really think that the basic council is necessary, then it would be good to revise the law again. But right now, I think it’s premature to go as far as the basic council.”

“But, Mr. President, what are you going to do with the role that the National Assembly is supposed to play? There are various things to do, like reviewing the budget.”

I told him what I had thought about beforehand.

“How about having some provincial council members also serve as basic council members?”

Although they are called provincial council members, in reality their role is not much different from that of basic council members.

In fact, most of the work they do is devoted to the local constituencies that elected them, rather than to the province or the metropolitan city.

“Wouldn’t that be too much work? There are about 100 local council members being elected in Gyeonggi Province this time, so if we were to review the entire budget of basic local governments with this number, it would be quite a burden.”

Representative Min shakes his head and asks how they can examine all that money with just 100 people.

I asked him back.

“Then how is the National Assembly reviewing the budget now? Aren’t there just a few hundred members reviewing the entire national budget?”

“That, that’s it… … .”

Representative Min is once again speechless.

In any case, neither the National Assembly nor local assemblies check the budget one by one carefully.

And this is the same no matter which country you go to.

It is impossible for a few hundred lawmakers to thoroughly review budgets planned by tens of thousands of civil servants.

Most people only care about the main budget and the budget for their own constituency projects.

You won’t find a single member of Congress anywhere in the world who pays as much attention to the details of every budget.

‘That wasn’t even possible in the first place.’

However, I do agree to some extent that the number is too small.

“Let’s increase the number of local council members by about 30 percent and have the government or local governments send some staff to help with budget review. Wouldn’t that be possible?”

“What are you going to do about the ordinance?”

“If necessary, the mayor or county governor can enact it to the extent necessary, and if there is a problem, the metropolitan council can reject it, right? Isn’t the main job of the ordinance in the first place?”

“That’s true, but… … .”

I drank my coffee one more time and spoke to Representative Min.

“I have thought about it many times, but why create a system that is so obviously going to cause countless problems? In fact, there are a considerable number of local council members. It would not be easy to select good candidates for these people alone. And there are thousands of local council members. Half of them might be filled with criminals. Does it make sense to fill local council members, who are equivalent to a 4th-grade civil servant, with criminals?”

There were roughly a thousand provincial council members alone.

This number is actually not an easy number to verify properly.

It is no easy task to properly verify 400 members of the National Assembly, let alone 1,000, including heads of local governments.

But it was absurd to ask for 5,000 more members of the National Assembly to be verified.

Representative Min looks at me and speaks in a serious voice.

“There will be considerable backlash. They are all a mess, but they definitely have quite a few followers. There will definitely be quite a few people who leave the party.”

I kind of expected it.

There will probably be more backlash than expected.

There have been quite a few people preparing for the local elections since the beginning of this year.

And no matter how much of a criminal they are, they are all people who are said to fart in the area.

There are probably quite a few people who agree with this.

‘But can we avoid the problem?’

“I always say, when you cut a wound, it hurts.”

“You always take the hard road.”

Representative Min looks at me with pity once again as I take the difficult path.

But this time the numbers were a little off.

‘This time, you’re going to have to suffer.’

“Haha. What am I having a hard time with? This time, it’s Representative Min who has to work hard.”

“Yes… …? What do you mean?”

Representative Min’s eyes widen.

And then he asks:

“Are you telling me that I should solve all these problems?”

“Isn’t it your capacity as the party leader to resolve these issues?”

“Yes… … ? Wasn’t the President going to come forward himself… … ?”

Representative Min is very embarrassed.

He probably came today as usual, hoping that I would somehow solve the problem.

‘It’s not like I’m training a successor, but if I want to continue as the party leader, I have to do at least this much.’

I smiled and patted his shoulder.

“Hahaha. Representative Min, have you forgotten what I said before? I will not interfere in domestic elections. This is actually related to domestic elections. If I interfere, wouldn’t it be like saying two things with one mouth?”

“No, that doesn’t mean I can do this alone… … .”

“Don’t worry. Representative Min is still young and full of energy, so he will do well.”

Representative Min looked terribly embarrassed and stared into space for several minutes without being able to get up from his seat.

* * *

“ha…….”

Even before the party meeting begins, Representative Min Jeong-gi sighs deeply.

The people next to him ask him in worried voices what is going on.

“Sir, what’s going on?”

“Oh, no. Let’s start the meeting.”

The party meeting begins and various stories are exchanged.

As expected, the most important thing was the story about the local elections that are just around the corner.

Although the election is just around the corner, the law on the electoral system has not even been properly passed yet.

But people actually seemed more interested in the ashes.

“No, that’s why I’m saying that person can’t be a candidate for Seoul mayor!”

“Why can’t it be done? Representative Seo, is it because you and that person fought over that person’s nomination last time?”

“What? You? Did you just say you!”

There are nearly ten cameras that are being watched.

Voices are gradually getting louder, and it is time to stop.

“Stop fighting. What a disgrace!”

The two lawmakers who had been fighting become quiet at Min Jeong-gi’s words.

And after a while, Representative Min opens his mouth.

“First, let’s pass the local autonomy-related bill. For now, we’ll go with the bill that was already prepared. However… … .”

Everyone focuses on Representative Min’s words.

Representative Min sighs and says.

“Ha, our Korean Party has decided not to hold elections for basic members in the upcoming local elections.”

People are suddenly buzzing.

I only told this to a few trusted members in advance, so most people probably didn’t know, so this is a natural reaction.

And soon, some lawmakers begin to object.

“Sir! What are you talking about!”

“That’s right! You’re suddenly saying you’re not going to implement the basic law!”

Representative Min continued speaking, ignoring the lawmakers’ comments.

“The provincial council members will take over some of the roles of the basic council members, and roles such as enacting ordinances will be left entirely to the discretion of the head of the basic local government. However, the number of provincial council members will be slightly increased, and the central and provincial governments will provide some support when reviewing the basic local government budget.”

Everyone is dissatisfied, but it is not easy to object any longer now that the party leader has spoken out like this.

But one member asks cautiously.

“Have you talked to the Blue House?”

“With the Blue House… … .”

Representative Min takes a deep breath and then says:

“There was no separate communication.”

* * *

The current opposition party, the Komeito Party, was united under the leadership of Yeo Dong-guk.

Since he was the only focal point of the Gongmin Party, which had effectively lost its focal point after Yang Kim, there was no other alternative, even if he was a candidate who did not even receive 10% of the votes in the presidential election.

And blood is blood, he had quite a bit of political sense.

The strategy he chose after his defeat in the presidential election was to incite regional conflict as much as possible.

Since it would be difficult for the current Gongmyeong Party to win against the Liberty Korea Party overall no matter what method they use, the strategy was to win at least in some regions.

The plan was to win in some areas, then, over time, when President Kim Jong-un steps down or his approval ratings drop, then move nationwide.

The areas he was targeting were North Hamgyong Province and South Hamgyong Province.

Among the northern regions, it was the area where development was relatively the slowest.

No matter how hard they try to work on infrastructure projects, development is bound to be relatively slow because the weather is so cold and the area is far from Seoul.

Of course, this has developed to an absurd degree compared to the past North Korean era, but compared to other regions, development has definitely been slow.

Even if we compare it with other northern regions, not necessarily Seoul, it is true that Hamgyeong Province’s development has lagged far behind.

And he used this very well.

The fact that he was born in Hamgyeong Province also played a role in exploiting the regional conflict.

Although he came to the south when he was young, his birthplace was Hamgyeong Province.

“People from Hamgyeong Province are called hot pants. That means that no matter how you treat us, we are the kind of people who keep our mouths shut.”

The so-called hot pants theory.

Originally, this was the method used by JP in history, but for some reason, Yeodongguk copied this method and used it as is.

He stirred up regional sentiments by mixing in the Hamgyong dialect, which he could not even use properly, in this hot pants theory.

They also actively utilized the idea of ​​abolishing the basic assembly of Minjeonggi representative some time ago.

“And does the pledge of the current Liberty Korea Party leader, Min Jeong-gi, to abolish the local councils and hold local elections make any sense? If the local councils are abolished, who will monitor the heads of local governments and who will monitor local government officials?”

He chose focus and choice.

Anyway, the president’s approval rating was fluctuating between 80 and 90%, so winning in every region was absolutely impossible.

If so, his strategy was to absorb the Hamgyeong-do region and some of the defectors from the Korean Party to secure a victory in at least some regions.

In any case, the abolition of the local council cannot be stopped since the leader of the Liberty Korea Party, which holds 70% of the seats in the National Assembly, has made up his mind to do so.

But there will definitely be a major uproar within the party.

His strategy was that he should accept those who rebelled and left him.

He welcomed barefooted the members of the Korean Party who had left the party in protest of the defection from the National Assembly.

In fact, his strategies were quite substantial.

In particular, in Hamgyeong Province, the approval rating of the Gongmyeong Party was neck and neck with that of the Korean Party.

This was truly encouraging, considering that President Kim Jong-guk’s approval rating was higher in the northern region than in the southern region.

[Hamgyongnam-do Governor’s Opinion Poll / Korea Party’s Lee Dae-kang Candidate 47.2% – Komeito Party’s Mao Su Candidate 48.3%]

[Hamgyeongbuk-do Governor Opinion Poll / Korea Party Candidate Kim Do-hoon 39.8% – Gongmyeong Party Candidate Yeom Dae-woong 43.2%]

[In the entire constituency, the Gongmyeong Party is ahead in only two places in Hamgyeong Province. Is the Gongmyeong Party candidate Yeo Dong-guk’s regional division strategy a success?]

And because of people who left the party out of dissatisfaction with the abolition of the local council, the Komeito Party’s approval rating was showing decent results in opinion polls of some local government heads.

Yeodongguk was quite encouraged.

But that didn’t last long.