Leadership claims the term has negative connotations for young voters


The ruling Grand National Party, already struggling with vote-buying allegations, is facing internal feuding over whether to eliminate the term “conservatism” from the party platform.

Though the party’s emergency leadership council largely agreed the term delivered a negative image to voters, the proposal to remove it triggered backlash from most GNP lawmakers who regard it as a key right-wing value.

The council’s subcommittee on policy reforms is said to have drafted a revised party platform, with the term “conservatism” deleted.

“We took out the expression ‘conservatism’ from our revised platform draft, but kept alive such conservative values as ‘free nation,’ ‘market economy’ and ‘national security,’” a member of the subcommittee told a local news agency on Wednesday.

As the news about the draft circulated, some GNP lawmakers who regard conservatism as the GNP identity expressed a strong opposition to the move in meetings with reporters. The head of the subcommittee tried to calm the stir by denying reports that it may send the draft to the council for further discussion.

“I have not received any notice of the kind and the issue is not to be discussed in today’s meeting,” said Rep. Kwon Young-jin, joint chairman of the subcommittee.

Kim Chong-in, former presidential secretary and leading member of the decision-making council, strongly pushed for the deletion.

“It is up to the voters to judge whether a party is or is not conservative,” said Kim.

“We do not need to state it in the party platform, especially as the word delivers an adverse image to the young generation.”

Politics nowadays may no longer be seen as just conservative and progressive, he added.

That view was met with fierce opposition from most of the party’s influential members.

“The GNP has advocated conservative values throughout its long history,” said Rep. Choi Kyung-hwan, a close aide to council chairwoman Rep. Park Geun-hye.

“The elimination of the word should thus be approved by members of the party.”

Rep. Chung Doo-un, a leading reformer, also spoke against the change.

“People should make efforts to change themselves, instead of rearranging the words in the party’s doctrine,” he said.

Chung, who is also the head of the party’s policy think tank, earlier said that the GNP should disband itself and start anew as a true conservative party.

While the council and party lawmakers clashed over fundamental values, interim leader Rep. Park left the parliament Wednesday to pay a visit to livestock farms in Gangwon Province, meeting with farmers and local residents.

Cattle farmers recently suffered heavy losses due to a price slump, with some staging protests to call for the government to purchase their beef cows for price stabilization.

Political observers see Park’s visit to farmers as a signal that she intends to shift the weight of the party renewal back to the people’s livelihoods. The GNP has come under fire for neglecting voters’ lives to focus on partisan interests.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)