By all accounts, it was a convivial meeting. On Thursday, President Park Geun-hye and leaders of the ruling Saenuri Party met at the Blue House, the first such meeting in nearly five months.
The gathering of Park and the top leaders of the Saenuri Party, including chairman Kim Moo-sung, newly-elected floor leader Won Yoo-chul, and new chief policymaker Kim Jung-hoon was an occasion to demonstrate that relations between the Blue House and the ruling party were back to normal, following the National Assembly Law Revision bill’s death and Yoo Seong-min’s resignation as the floor leader.
Park appeared cheerful and relaxed at the meeting, a vastly different mood from the last meeting with the Saenuri Party leadership in February when Yoo said that the opposition party must also be listened to. Relations between Park and Yoo, Park’s former associate, got off to a rocky start and culminated in Yoo’s resignation earlier this month after Park singled him out for a vociferous attack during a Cabinet meeting.
At Thursday’s meeting, Park asked that the party, the government, and the Blue House unite as one in pursuing urgently needed reforms while Kim Moo-sung offered the party’s unwavering support, saying that the Park administration’s success was the Saenuri Party’s success.
The ruling party and the Blue House should work closely together, but they should remember a lesson learned from the recent fiasco over the National Assembly Law Revision bill ― the importance of communication. It should be recalled that the Park and the Saenuri Party leadership had not been in direct communication during those crucial months when the controversial National Assembly Law Revision bill and the civil servant’s pension scheme reform were being debated. Lack of communication was ultimately responsible for the fiasco that led to the president’s wrath and Yoo’s subsequent resignation.
With the new leadership in charge at the Saenuri Party, one that seems more amenable to Park’s wishes and directives, perhaps there will be more communication between the ruling party and the Blue House. It should be remembered, however, that communication involves exchanges, active listening and speaking by all parties.
