The non-mainstream factions of the strife-torn United Progressive Party have managed to launch an emergency leadership headed by Rep. Kang Ki-kab, seizing the initiative from the party’s widely criticized mainstreamers.
Kang was appointed at a meeting of the party’s central committee, which was convened online from Sunday night to Monday morning without the presence of the representatives from the mainstream group.
The committee’s meeting on Saturday was interrupted by violence. Some 100 members of the mainstream group assaulted the three co-leaders from the non-mainstream factions as they sought to pass a resolution calling for the resignation of the party’s six proportional lawmakers-elect, including the three who were chosen through fraud-ridden primaries. Two of the three are from the mainstream faction.
The disputed resolution was passed by the central committee, along with other reform proposals, during the online meeting.
Now the non-mainstream factions have taken all the steps they pushed for since the party’s in-house probe team uncovered early this month voting fraud in the primaries held to select the party’s proportional representation candidates for the April general election.
Yet this does not mean they can lead the party in the direction they want. The emergency leadership led by Kang faces determined resistance from the mainstreamers.
Kang’s primary mission is to implement what has been decided by the central committee. Yet the mainstream faction refuses to recognize the emergency leadership itself, claiming that the online vote was illegal and therefore invalid.
The mainstreamers have also rejected the committee’s call for the resignation of the proportional lawmakers-elect, especially the two from the East Gyeonggi Coalition, the mainstream faction’s core group.
The mainstream faction’s intransigence is motivated by its desire to maintain power and secure a foothold in the National Assembly. But its behavior has disappointed a large swathe of its supporters and weakened its power base.
Shocked by the unforgivable use of violence by the mainstream group, the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions, the party’s largest backer, is set to withdraw its exclusive support for the party.
As things stand now, there is little chance of the factions smoothing things over and working together to revive the party. But they are unlikely to split into separate parties either.
The most likely course is to go separate ways under the same roof, continuing their never-ending power struggle. This would damage its value as a partner of the main opposition Democratic United Party for the December presidential election. The mainstreamers should realize that this, too, puts them on the path to ruin.
