[Editorial] Out of the spotlight

Only three seats of the 300-member National Assembly will be up for grabs when the parliamentary by-elections are held on Wednesday. Still, they are drawing much more public attention than they deserve.

There are two reasons. One is that the elections are the first to be held since Park Geun-hye was elected president in December. The other is that Ahn Cheol-soo, an independent, who was once Park’s formidable adversary in the presidential race, is now running in one of the electoral districts.

Barring the unexpected, candidates from the ruling Saenuri Party are assured wins in two districts ― one in South Chungcheong Province and the other in Busan. Opinion polls show that they are leading their opponents by big margins. Moreover, the province and the metropolis are among the ruling party’s electoral bastions.

As such, public attention is focused on the district in Seoul where Ahn is trailed by his Saenuri adversary within what pollsters say is the margin of error. Seen nowhere in center stage, however, is the main opposition Democratic United Party, which speaks volumes about its plight.

Shortly after Ahn decided to run in the Nowon C district in Seoul last month, the Democratic United Party decided not to field its own candidate in the district. It was returning the favor to Ahn, who had bowed out of the presidential race in support of its nominee, Moon Jae-in.

Nonetheless, the opposition party is ambivalent about Ahn’s election to the National Assembly, given his options as a lawmaker. If he wins the election, Ahn will have to choose to remain as an independent, create his own party or join the opposition party ― none of which the opposition party’s interim or future leadership will likely find it easy to embrace with open arms.

Ahn may choose to be an independent for a short period of time. But it cannot be a long-term solution. If the presidential election taught him how hard it was for an independent candidate to turn his soaring approval ratings into actual votes, he must be now recognizing that the national fame he has since garnered does not guarantee an easy win in a small electoral district when it is not backed up by organizational support from an established political party.

If he decides to create a party as the launch pad for his renewed presidential ambitions, he will do so at the expense of the main opposition party. His party would split the voter support for the opposition, a predominant portion of which has so far been reserved for the Democratic United Party. Moreover, the possibility cannot be ruled out that, should Ahn set up a new party, quite a few lawmakers affiliated with the main opposition party would choose to jump ship.

Nor can the opposition party’s leadership welcome it wholeheartedly if he decides to join up with the party, because his decision could prove to be a Trojan horse. Once inside, he may ally himself with Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, who has recently decided to make a bid for reelection on the party’s ticket next year, and other key party figures for a new powerful faction. The mayor will have to return the favor to Ahn, who gave up his pursuit of the Seoul mayoralty and endorsed Park in a by-election two years ago.

Even so, the opposition party would not like the Saenuri candidate to beat Ahn. His win would undoubtedly strengthen the hand of the ruling party and, by extension, that of President Park.

The concern for the ramifications of the election outcome can be left unaddressed until after a national convention, scheduled for May 4, is over. On the day, the center-left party is set to revise its platform and elect its new leadership.

What it needs to do is bring itself closer to the center and elect a leadership skillful and strong enough to bridge the gap between the progressive and moderate forces. As its recently released report acknowledged, the party lost the 2012 presidential election because a factional division ran deep and its progressive leadership and presidential nominee had an inadequate electoral strategy.

As such, they were deluded enough to believe, for instance, that their ideologically colored promise to review Korea’s free trade agreement with the United States for revision or abrogation would prevail among the electorate. The party under a new leadership will have to guard against making similar mistakes in the future.