Han Dong-hoon won a fierce fight to be elected as the new leader of the People Power Party, but he faces another tough challenge.
He has to fight the gigantic opposition forces which dominate the National Assembly. He also has to resolve internal party conflict with loyalists of President Yoon Suk Yeol who are critical of him.
Above all, it is important to restore trust from those who are disappointed with the current performance of the Yoon government and the governing party.
Expectations for soul-searching and change in the party were high at the national convention because it was held about three months after it suffered a crushing defeat in the April 10 general election.
Throughout their campaigns, however, all four candidates immersed themselves in finding faults with one another rather than presenting their visions for reform or their leadership competence.
They clashed bitterly over mobile phone texts that first lady Kim Keon Hee had sent to Han before the general election. Kim asked Han whether she should apologize to people for accepting a luxury handbag for free, but Han, the interim party leader at the time, did not reply. The feud among the candidates spread to suspicions that Han had operated secret teams to post online comments favorable to him.
In response, Han revealed that Rep. Na Kyung-won, one of the four candidates, had asked him, while he was still justice minister, to drop the indictment of Liberty Korea Party lawmakers including herself in a case of physical scuffles with Democratic Party lawmakers. The Liberty Korea Party is the former name of the People Power Party. In 2019, Liberty Korea Party lawmakers tussled with Democratic Party lawmakers to prevent them from attempting to fast-track election and other bills. During the melee, some lawmakers suffered bruises and fractured ribs.
It would not be wrong to say that dirty political campaigns were what dragged down voter turnout by more than 6 percentage points from the previous national convention.
The latest national convention was anything but a stage for harmony of the party. It degenerated into a life-or-death factional fight. It has left a deep wound on the party.
And yet party members and the general public gave Han a majority of the vote apparently in the hope of seeing him resolve strife in the ruling party early.
In a gesture of unity and cooperation, he should hold out his hand to the candidates he fought fiercely, and search for harmony in the party through impartial personnel appointments.
This is ultimately connected to the issue of how to set the relations between the party and President Yoon.
If the two sides fail to keep in step with each other as partners in state affairs, government administration will get nowhere for the rest of Yoon's presidency, especially considering the opposition parties' control of the National Assembly.
On the one hand, the People Power Party should underpin the ideology and policy directions of the Yoon government, but on the other, it should not hesitate to hold the government in check when its policies and personnel appointments drift apart from public opinions. To do so, relations between the presidential office and the ruling party must not be lopsided. The point is how Han will reestablish a horizontally smooth relationship between the two sides as he pledged during his campaign.
The most difficult problem he has to grapple with immediately is unilateral legislation by the Democratic Party and other opposition parties. They are pushing unacceptable bills, tenuous impeachments and special counsel investigations.
Serving the party as its interim leader ahead of the previous general elections is all of his political career. For a leader of a 108-seat minority party, it is challenging to deal with opposition parties with 192 seats.
The People Power Party has been helpless before opposition parties ever since the general elections. It resorts to presidential vetoes, but repeated exercises of the right would increase the political burden on the president and the ruling party.
Han must figure out ways to persuade opposition parties and sometimes to secure their understanding and cooperation. He faces a real tough challenge.
