With exactly one year left before the presidential election, Rep. Park Geun-hye is poised to return to the helm of the Grand National Party on Monday, tasked with lifting the ruling conservatives from a crisis and winning back the confidence of voters.

In a national committee meeting in the afternoon, the party is expected to endorse the appointment of Park as head of its emergency leadership council.
Former chairman Rep. Hong Joon-pyo resigned earlier this month after he came under mounting pressure from his ranks to vacate the seat for Park so that she can lead the unpopular party until the general election in April.

Park, upon taking office, plans to unveil her blueprint for party reforms, her aides said Sunday.

She also plans to swiftly fill senior leadership positions with reform-minded figures who can assist her in rebuilding of the GNP and preparations for the election. 

Koreans will pick members of the parliament on April 11 and a new president on Dec. 19.

“At least a half (of the emergency leadership council seats) could be given to non-party figures,” a source close to Park said, adding that her team will be anything like previous leadership councils.

Last week, Park successfully mended a rift between party members, with promises to reform the GNP “to the core.”

Rebel lawmakers demanded that the GNP disband itself and be reborn as a completely new party, if it is to stand a chance to win in elections next year. Two of the rebel members quit the party, expressing their frustration at the old guard’s resistance to giving up vested rights.

Park, in a meeting with the rebel members, pledged to change the party to a degree that goes “beyond recreation.”

The GNP has been plagued by a series of by-election defeats, corruption scandals, and most recently, a devastating allegation that its officials may have been involved in a cyber attack against the national election watchdog during a vote in October for Seoul mayor.

The liberal opposition suspects that the hacking attack may have been a failed attempt to influence the outcome of the election, where the GNP candidate lost to opposition-backed independent, Park Won-soon.

By Lee Sun-young (milaya@heraldcorp.com)