[Newsmaker] The embattled whip

The governing party remained split Sunday over if it should stage a confidence vote on whip Rep. Yoo Seong-min due to his role in last week’s legislative crisis that is widely viewed as a power struggle between him and the president.

President Park Geun-hye last Thursday vetoed a bill, chiefly sponsored by her former chief of staff Yoo, that would have given lawmakers the right to ask for revisions to government decrees. Park said the changes violated the principle of the division of powers and blasted Yoo for causing a political crisis. 

Yoo apologized, but resisted pressure from Park-loyalist lawmakers to resign.

 
The latest friction between Park and Yoo was nothing new, with Park’s veto of the bill only adding another chapter to their love-hate relationship, analysts said, by sparking an in-house feud in the ruling Saenuri Party that pitches Park loyalists against Yoo sympathizers.

Yoo and Park began their political relationship amicably, when Park in 2005 named Yoo as her chief of staff during her tenure as the chairwoman of the Grand National Party, the forerunner to the Saenuri Party. Yoo later served in Park’s presidential campaign team in 2007.

But the relationship soured in late 2011 when Yoo opposed Park’s plans to change the party’s name from the GNP to the Saenuri Party, saying the newly proposed name lacked “identity.”

Yoo has also consistently opposed Park’s policies since rising to the ruling party’s floor leadership in February, including his criticism of Park’s “welfare without taxation” approach, which Yoo said was an impossibility.

“(President Park’s) 134.5 trillion won ($120 billion) campaign promise has turned out to be false,” Yoo said at a parliamentary speech in April in reference to Park’s welfare pledges. 

“Politicians must be more honest about our fiscal reality,” Yoo added, citing government tax revenues that had come short of initial expectations.

Yoo had also released critical statements against Park’s foreign policy and national security policies and passed downsized versions of Park’s proposed reforms on the public service pension in May, drawing the ire of the president and her followers in the ruling party.

Park loyalists threatened to renew requests to hold a confidence vote on Yoo on Monday. Several Saenuri lawmakers traditionally not considered to be in the pro-Park camp also urged Yoo to resign despite his apologies to Park last week.

Yoo sympathizers, on the other hand, urged the embattled whip to stand his ground. They also accused the president of trying to commandeer the party for her political agenda, instead of using negotiations to convince dissenters.

“Respecting the presidential veto (by not putting the veto to a parliamentary vote) is one thing,” Saenuri Rep. Park Min-shik said. 

“But using this crisis to worsen strained ties between the party and President Park is something else,” he said, hinting that pressuring Yoo to resign was going too far.

By Jeong Hunny (hj257@heraldcorp.com)