Lee Myung-bak's short vision

The big money is on Lee Myung-bak. He's the favourite to win the up coming South Korean elections to succeed president Roh Moo-hyun. Lee's a no nonsense businessman, he says. He has recently had any odour of scandal attached to his name washed away. He worked for Hyundae which has close ties to North Korea's Kim Jong-il. However, Lee takes a hard nosed approach to the North, boast he, and is now, if elected, going to put a fine tooth comb to the 47 accords signed by Roh and Kim at the second inter Korean summit in October 2007. Are they justified? is his rule of thumb. Of course they are, but the monies going to the North, however, challenge Lee's hobby horse project of digging a canal from west to east in South Korea, a short term goal which pales in comparison to the rapproachement between the North and the South of a divided Korean peninsula. It would make eminently good won and sense were it tied into the joint agreements. But Lee's vision is cloudy and clouded. It is useful to remember that he headed Hyundae's construction arm, so a canal will featherbed the construction industry and of course his old company. Lee will carry on business as usual through slushfunds, unmarked enveloped, and championing the old chaebol guard.
Will the dignity of the office the spindoctors say that he has already won confer wisdom on him, so that he reorientates his narrow ideas to embrace the wider vision of his two predecessors--Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo-hyum? That remains to be seen.