The left-wing United Progressive Party is headed toward a train wreck as the widely denounced former mainstream faction has launched its own emergency leadership, challenging the one set up with the blessing of the party’s central committee.
The new interim leadership is headed by Oh Byung-yoon, one of the six lawmakers-elect of the National Liberation faction, which until recently ran the party. The move demonstrated the faction’s determination to defend its two proportional lawmakers-elect ― Lee Seok-gi and Kim Jae-yeon ― who became the party’s candidates through fraud-ridden primaries.
Oh said the new leadership was intended to clear the NL group of a false charge that it had manipulated the primaries and thereby recover the party’s tarnished reputation.
Yet the justification did not hold water. The vote-rigging charge made against the faction cannot be seen as false in light of the ample evidence dug out by the party’s investigation team.
Furthermore, as the party’s reputation was irrevocably tarred by the group’s election fraud and use of violence against former party leaders, any attempt to regain public confidence should start with its admission of wrongdoing and the resignation of the two disputed lawmakers-elect.
Yet the NL faction had the audacity to blame others for pushing the party into confusion. And the two lawmakers-elect rejected the party’s call for resignation during their meetings with Rep. Kang Ki-kab, leader of the party’s official emergency leadership council. Kang had given them an ultimatum to tender resignations by Monday morning.
As Kang rightly pointed out, the NL’s interim leadership represented a direct challenge to the party’s authority. As such, the faction should be held responsible for all the damage done to the party and the nation’s entire progressive political forces.
Kang previously suggested that the party would expel the two if they refuse to step aside. Yet eviction is not in the cards. Under the UPP’s constitution, the authority to take disciplinary action against party members rests with local party chapters. Aware of this, the two recently changed their membership registration from the party’s Seoul chapter, which is under the control of their rival factions, to the Gyeonggi Province chapter, which is controlled by the NL group.
The faction’s launch of interim leadership is aimed at seizing control of the party again by winning a showdown with its rivals at the national convention in June, where the party will elect new representatives and central committee members. The party’s democratic elements and their supporters should not let the NL faction carry the day.
