Rep. Park Young-sun, the interim leader of South Korea’s main opposition party, may leave the party, sources said Monday, as inner conflict threatened to paralyze the party’s decision-making in the face of falling ratings.

Infighting has dogged the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, with its factions voicing conflicting views on key issues. The internal division subsided a bit last month in the wake of a landslide electoral defeat to the ruling Saenuri Party in July.

But the problem resurfaced in recent weeks, as the NPAD’s hard-line faction blamed acting chair Park for the party’s continued woes.

Park hinted that she might step down from her post and possibly even withdraw from the party altogether. Park was reported to have cited the hard-liners as the top reason she was considering leaving the party.

“How can I stay at my post when lawmakers from my own party are calling for me to resign?” Park was quoted as saying by a local daily.

In-house voices criticizing Park’s leadership reached fever pitch last week when she proposed recruiting Lee Sang-don, a moderate conservative and former Grand National Party official, as a cochair of the progressive NPAD. The GNP was the forerunner of the Saenuri Party.

“Lee is an individual who has been an appeaser of the ruling bloc and a person who has continued to stand in the progressives’ way,” NPAD Rep. Jung Cheong-rae said. Jung is a senior lawmaker and part of the so-called “486” faction, a hard-line group.

“But if Park leaves the NPAD, this will be the end of her political career,” said Yang Seung-ham, professor of Korean politics at Yonsei University.

It is doubtful the hard-liners will budge, Yang said, because they are likely eyeing the 2015 party convention, at which the permanent party chairperson will be elected. Once the hard-liners grab the party’s top post, they will probably use it to nominate members of their faction as NPAD candidates in the 2016 general elections, Yang added.

Park assumed the party leadership in August, after former cochairs Reps. Ahn Cheol-soo and Kim Han-gil stepped down to take responsibility for the landslide defeats to the ruling party in the July 30 by-elections.

Upon becoming the interim chief, Park vowed to reform the party to boost its faltering public ratings. But Park’s failure to legislate the controversial special Sewol bill entangled her in a seemingly endless series of talks with the governing party, preventing her from kicking off a reform plan.

Park has seen the party’s public ratings fall to 19.5 percent, according to a Realmeter survey conducted earlier this month. Gallup Korea measured the NPAD’s standings at 22 percent on Sept. 4, compared to the Saenuri Party’s 44 percent.

By Jeong Hunny (hj257@heraldcorp.com)