Politicians should – or at least pretend to – respect the public mandate delivered in major elections like last week’s general election. One such way is to change – or at least promise to – but Korean political parties, winners and losers alike, remain as stale as ever.
The two largest parties Saenuri and Minjoo are struggling with internal disputes that plagued their campaigns for the April 13 general election.
The biggest problem lies with the biggest loser of the election, the Saenuri Party, which is drifting without a leader since Kim Moo-sung resigned as chairman of the party.
More seriously, latest developments show that it will not be easy for the party to form a solid leadership that can put the house in order and lead the party through the next presidential election slated for December next year.
What’s lamentable is that party members who belong to the faction loyal to President Park Geun-hye are ignoring the voters’ verdict against them.
The prime example was their attempt to install floor leader Won Yoo-chul – a Park loyalist -- as the head of the caretaker panel that will lead the party until the national convention to elect new leadership in June.
In the face of protest from non-Park supporters and reform-minded junior lawmakers, Won took a step back, instead suggesting that the new floor leader be elected on May 3 to head the caretaker panel.
But this too has problems because it is almost certain that the new floor leader will come from the pro-Park faction that accounts for a majority of lawmakers in the party. That will give the upper hand to the Park loyalists in selecting the new party leader and the presidential candidate.
In other words, the pro-Park members, instead of taking responsibility for the devastating election defeat, are trying to extend their control of the party, which they believe is essential for their victory in the next presidential election.
This runs counter to the mandate voters gave the party: Pro-Park supporters should give way so that the party can be reborn as a faction-free, healthy conservative party. One way to respect the people’s judgement could be to bring in an outside figure to head the stopgap leadership.
Meanwhile, the focal point of the Minjoo Party of Korea is on its interim leader Kim Chong-in, who was brought to lead the election campaigns of the party that has been as severely plagued by factional strife as the Saenuri Party.
Kim and his associates have floated the idea of skipping the national convention and enthroning him as the legitimate leader, having him lead the party until the presidential election. This obviously goes against the party constitution, which stipulates that the party leader be selected by an electorate that includes nonparty members.
In other words, Kim and his followers seek to flout the basic democratic process for selecting a party leader. This reminds one of the controversy Kim sparked when he – despite strong criticism -- put himself on the second spot on the list of candidates to be elected under the proportional representation system.
Having led the party to an upset victory, Kim may well believe that it owes him a lot, and he is entitled to everything and anything he wants. But many voters who chose Minjoo candidates did so not because they liked them or Kim, but because they did not like Saenuri. It is sad that politicians so easily misunderstand what the voters wanted to say through their ballots
