Ever since the nepotism scandal tied to President Park Geun-hye erupted, her governing Saenuri Party has been on the brink of a split between the once mainstreamers who are loyal to the president and the group of those who are less loyal.

The emerging chasm continued to deepen as the dissenters demand the all-out resignation of the incumbent leadership run by pro-Park lawmakers. Earlier in the day, heavyweight dissenters boycotted the party’s decision-making Supreme Council meeting and launched their own leadership organization.

Saenuri’s worsening factional division has offered two choices to its leader Rep. Lee Jung-hyun, one of the staunchest loyalists to the president: Whether to accept the call for resignation or to stick to his leadership position.

Until now, Lee has pledged to choose the latter. Instead of leaving his office immediately, the third-term lawmaker said that he would retain his position at least until late December, a month before the party elects new leadership on Jan. 21, 2017. 

“I’m an elected Saenuri leader whose term ends on Aug. 9, 2018,” Lee told reporters during a meeting to mark the 100th day anniversary of his taking office. “No one can ignore the party’s average members’ right to choose me.”

His opponents -- almost 60 Saenuri lawmakers outside of the pro-park faction -- pointed to Lee’s “special relationship” with the president as the rationale for his reluctance to leave the top office despite the mounting criticism.

Since running for parliamentary election for the first time in 2004, Lee has been considered to be a “mouthpiece” for Park, who led the then main opposition Grand National Party, a precursor to Saenuri. He had worked as a senior spokesman until Park was defeated during the primary for the 2007 presidential election.

Though most GNP members who supported Park switched sides and worked for then President-elect Lee Myung-bak, Lee decided to stay with Park. He rejected the offer to work as a senior strategist in Lee’s election campaign.

Lee once told Park that he would leave politics if he lost the opportunity to work for her. Such behavior has earned the trust of Park, who observers say has commitment issue over her aides after seeing her father, late President Park Chung-hee, assassinated by his long-time confidante.

“I have never seen Lee say what I didn’t say,” Park famously said in 2013 when she served as GNP leader. A year later, Park was elected as the president. Under her presidency, Lee worked as senior presidential secretary for political affairs, and afterwards, served as the senior secretary for public relations

Even after being elected as a party leader in August, Lee has showed no sign of setting a different tone in his relationship with Park unlike his predecessors, such as former Saenuri leader Rep. Kim Moo-sung. Kim clashed with the president over differences in the nominating procedure for 2016 parliamentary elections.

“What the president thinks and what the Saenuri Party thinks should not be different,” said Lee during his first public meeting after taking office on Aug 10. “If you think that confronting the president is the right thing to do, you don’t deserve to be Saenuri member.”

By Yeo Jun-suk (jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com)