Since its humiliating defeat in the April 13 general election, the ruling Saenuri Party has been drifting rudderless. Torn apart by factional strife, the party has not even been able to fill its leadership vacuum, much less make concerted efforts toward reform. Yet it appears to have created momentum for normalizing its operation.
The burden to save the party from sliding further into crisis rests solely on the shoulders of Chung Jin-suk, who was elected as the party’s new floor leader early this month.
Yet Chung has been left clueless about reshaping the party after his plans to launch interim leadership and a separate reform committee were thwarted by the party’s mainstream faction loyal to President Park Geun-hye.
The faction refused to endorse Chung’s plan because the members he selected for the leadership and the committee were mostly non-mainstreamers.
Desperate to find a breakthrough in the impasse, Chung arranged a meeting on Tuesday with former party chairman Kim Moo-sung and Rep. Choi Kyung-hwan, the former finance minister and leader of the pro-Park faction.
After the meeting, Chung announced that the three had reached a broad consensus on shifting the party’s leadership structure from collective leadership to a system that offers more authority to a single leader.
He also said the three shared the view that it would be better to launch an emergency committee that would run the party until the election of a new party leader, while at the same time doubling as a reform committee.
For Chung, the consensus seemed to provide a clue as to how to rescue the party from its prolonged crisis. Yet some non-mainstreamers rightly questioned its legitimacy, noting that Kim and Choi were not in a position to decide on such important issues as the party’s leadership structure.
So Chung decided to hold a general meeting of the party’s newly elected lawmakers early next week to discuss what had been agreed at the Tuesday meeting.
The agreement reached at the three-way talks is expected to be endorsed at the meeting, as it is supported by both mainstreamers and non-mainstreamers. If that happens, it would provide an important starting point for Chung’s push to normalize the party.
With the opening of the new National Assembly slated for next Monday, the ruling party has no time to waste. It should get its act together to face opposition parties that control a majority of the parliamentary seats.
For this, it should overcome factionalism. Chung asserted that Choi and Kim agreed, under his urging, to dissolve factions in the party. Yet his claim is not quite convincing. Whether the two leaders really agreed to put an end to factionalism remains to be seen.
