Ahn Cheol-soo recently claimed that an independent, such as himself, can make a good president if, while holding the legislature in high esteem, he is capable of persuading the ruling and opposition parties to pursue common goals.
An independent, persuasive president’s governance, he said, is a viable alternative to either the conservative Saenuri Party’s continuously uninspiring majority rule or the liberal Democratic United Party’s ineffective, cantankerous minority government. But it is inconceivable that Ahn is so naive as to be convinced of what he said.
If the rival parties were like-minded enough to share policy goals, they would not fight so fiercely in elections in the first place. With the parties set wide apart in their ideological orientations, theirs is basically an adversarial relationship.
As such, it is not unusual for burly, threatening members of the ruling party to forcibly break through a barricade of rugged, menacing opposition lawmakers in their attempt to railroad controversial bills through the National Assembly. Even the passage of a seemingly innocuous bill often requires hard, time-consuming bargaining.
Ahn’s remarks on an independent presidency made sense insofar as they were used as a gambit for forthcoming talks with the main opposition DUP on who would run for the president on the party’s ticket ― him or party nominee Moon Jae-in.
Indeed, his remarks followed what Rep. Lee Hae-chan, leader of the opposition party, said about the administration of state affairs by an unaffiliated president a week ago. Lee called on Ahn to join the opposition party and compete with Moon for the party’s presidential candidacy, saying it was near impossible for an unaffiliated president to administer state affairs without the backing of a political party.
Lee said that a candidate needs to be selected from between Moon and Ahn and represent the opposition party and other opposition forces as well. He was right when he said an independent presidency cannot be an option for him, adding that parties are placed center stage when it comes to the modern politics of representation.
As Lee said, an unaffiliated president would have to meet each member of the 300-seat National Assembly for support if he wished to pass every bill fleshing out his political vision ― a task he could hardly afford to accomplish.
Ahn is not averse to the idea of negotiating his affiliation with the opposition party and pursuit of his nomination by the party. When he declared his bid for the presidency last month, he said he could agree to the party’s proposal to hold a new primary for nomination if the party reformed itself in ways he did not specify. He said again recently that he would be pressured by the electorate to join the party if it completed a painful process of drastic reform.
A potential key to negotiations could be how to share power when either of them should win the presidential election on the party’s ticket. One prevailing idea is for the president to select his erstwhile rival as his prime minister and assure him of the full constitutional authority vested in the office of prime minister ― more specifically, the unhindered power to recommend nominees for presidential appointments to Cabinet posts.
Article 87 of the Constitution reads in part: “The members of the State Council (Cabinet) are appointed by the president on the recommendation of the prime minister.” Though the power of recommendation is written in stone, few prime ministers have exercised it except on paper, allowing the president to fill Cabinet vacancies unhindered.
Ahn acknowledges that his campaign committee is studying the idea of preventing the president from exercising more power than constitutionally permitted. But he is quick to warn against linking this to the proposed negotiations with the Democratic United Party. He says, “We are in the process of free discussions. No decision has been made yet.”
If so, Ahn will do well to speed up the process of making a decision on power sharing, abandon the risky idea of being elected president as an independent and start negotiations on the terms of his admission to the opposition party. The sooner, the better. He should be reminded that not much time is left until the Dec. 19 vote.
