The main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy has put its self-reform efforts into full gear by officially appointing a liberal former education superintendent to head an “innovation committee.”
The panel, headed by Kim Sang-gon, former education chief of Gyeonggi Province, is tasked with reinvigorating the party, which suffered successive election defeats, by addressing its notorious factional rivalry and drawing up other self-reform programs.
Party leader Moon Jae-in, who has been under pressure to step down for the defeat in the April 29 elections, said the reform panel would have full authority to initiate reform measures on the party’s personnel management, the nomination of election candidates and broadening its support base.
The reform should aim for the party to win the parliamentary elections next year and eventually win power in the 2017 presidential election, Moon said, adding that he would give up all vested rights as the party leader with the determination to “cut his own flesh.”
Kim also expressed his resoluteness. “I have been granted full authority from chairman Moon and the Supreme Council and will not tolerate any groups or individuals who stand in the way of the reform,” Kim said.
Judging from the tone of the remarks by Moon and Kim and the situation faced by the NPAD, some may expect ― or hope at the least ― that the reform panel will accomplish its mission and the party will be reborn as a healthy opposition force.
If the past is any guide, however, too much anticipation may result in as much disappointment. The NPAD, whose root is a liberal opposition party with strong support from the southwestern region, has made such self-reform efforts whenever it lost a major election. The panel headed by Kim is the seventh such reform panel since 2008.
Moreover, the recent developments in the party show that the factional rivalry is too deep and wide to be closed down by proposals to be made by the reform panel in a short period of time, most of which will not be much different from those which had been suggested by similar panels in the past.
Distrust and hatred between the party’s rival factions are so strong that chairman Moon, who is the de facto leader of the mainstream pro-Roh faction, was booed when he visited Gwangju, the home turf of the party’s minority faction.
Key members of the nonmainstream faction, in turn, were booed by the pro-Rohs when they attended a memorial service marking the sixth anniversary of the death of Roh Moo-hyun. The protesters even threw water bottles at non-mainstream members like Kim Han-gil, Chun Jung-bae and Park Jie-won.
The first indicator of whether Kim’s panel could achieve its mission will come when Kim announces the list of its members, which he said would be made by early next month. It is needless to say that Kim should pick people from across the board of the party and other liberal groups.
For his part, Moon needs to demonstrate his will to mend fences with the nonmainstream faction through the appointment of the new party secretary general and other key postholders, who had resigned recently to pave the way for party reforms.
