The leadership race of The Minjoo Party of Korea is following the path taken by the ruling Saenuri Party, which in its recent leadership contest ended up consolidating the hegemonic power of its mainstream faction that is largely unpopular outside the party.
None of the Minjoo candidates — Choo Mi-ae, Lee Jong-kul and Kim Sang-kon — offer a vision for the party, which many liberals hope will be able to win back power at next year’s presidential election by defeating the conservative ruling party.
Instead, the three candidates are only obsessed with obtaining votes from members and supporters of the party’s mainstream faction loyal to the late President Roh Moo-hyun and former party leader and presidential candidate Moon Jae-in.
The result is that they are only competing to show who is more radical to cater to the leftist supporters of Roh and Moon.
The party’s ignorance of the need to move a little toward the middle of the ideological spectrum was also verified by the mass election of the pro-Roh and pro-Moon candidates as chiefs of its regional organizations.
Another example of the party being trapped by bygone leftist radicalism is the recent rejection by the mainstreamers of a proposal to delete “workers” from the party platform.
Obviously, the party has failed to learn lessons from the desertion of moderates led by Ahn Cheol-soo who founded the People’s Party routed Minjoo candidates in the southwestern provinces, the traditional support base for liberal parties, in the April 13 parliamentary election.
Neither did it learn from Saenuri, where loyalists of President Park Geun-hye took firmer control despite their excessive intervention in the candidate nominations of the parliamentary election that resulted in the loss of control of the legislature to the opposition.
It is notable that one of the harshest criticisms about the party’s disappointing leadership race comes from no other than Kim Chong-in, the interim leader the Minjoo Party recruited after Ahn left.
Kim pointed at radicals in the party, saying that politics should not be swayed by slogans and demagogy. He went on to rebuke candidates and mainstreamers who oppose the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system.
Sadly, what we have witnessed so far shows that whoever is elected as the new party leader Saturday is unlikely to heed the outgoing leader’s advice, this will certainly distance it further from sensible voters.
