Tomorrow (19 December) South Korea will hold presidential elections and, if the polls can be trusted, it looks like the former mayor of Seoul and Hyundai Construction businessman Lee Myung-bak (이명박) will win.

Unfortunately – and bizarrely, considering the nuclear test was little over a year ago and concentration camps are still operating – North Korea has not been a major campaign issue during this election cycle. North Korean defectors living in South Korea are bitterly disappointed after 10 years of what they consider betrayal by Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. Defectors generally prefer conservative candidates and call for regime change in North Korea.

Lee Hoi Chang (이회창), who narrowly lost to Roh Moo-hyun (노무현) in December 2002, would have been the candidate for defectors. However, Lee, who is running as an independent after failing to secure the nomination of the conservative Grand National Party (GNP), has been steadily loosing ground after an initially respectable entry into the race. If North Korea’s reaction is anything to go by, Lee Hoi Chang is who I would select.

The likely winner, Lee Myung-bak, is the GNP candidate and was previously more hawkish towards engagement with North Korea. Perhaps to moderate fanatically pro-engagement leftists, Lee altered his position to and called for engagement with North Korea through investment rather than direct aid. Basically from the “Sunshine Policy” to something of a “Sun-Lite” policy.

On the surface it appears that North Korea will still have engagement options, but less no-strings aid. However, considering that North Korea often demands aid before granting South Korea the privilege of engaging, I wonder if Lee’s approach will last long, perhaps giving him the excuse to fall back on a more hard-line approach.