The ruling Saenuri Party is on the verge of a breakup. The impending implosion of the party endangers not only what has been a conservative bastion for decades but also the bipartisan system that has been buttressed by two major parties representing conservatives and liberals.

Since the National Assembly voted to impeach Park on Friday, the situation within the ruling party has become more complicated, with the nonmainstream faction diverging.

Some non-Parks had already bolted from the party before the parliamentary impeachment, including Gyeonggi Gov. Nam Kyung-pil who is a presidential hopeful and Kim Yong-tae, a fourth-term lawmaker.

Former party leader Kim Moo-sung indicated Tuesday that he might leave and seek to launch a new political party, around which, he said, conservatives and middle-of-the-roaders could be united.

Then there is a third group led by former Floor Leader Yoo Seong-min who contends that the priority should be to reform the party and leaving should be the last option.

The bigger problem is that the Park loyalists, who are under pressure to take responsibility for the crisis caused by Park, are fighting back against the nonmainstreamers, setting the stage for an all-out internal war.

Calling people like Kim and Yoo who voted across the aisle for the impeachment vote “icons of betrayal,” the pro-Park faction is demanding that they leave the party.

The Park loyalists demonstrated their determination to fight it out against the non-Parks by adding eight people close to them to the party’s ethics panel, which has been discussing disciplinary action against Park and which may take on the cases of Kim and Yoo.

It is not hard to see the reason for the Park loyalists’ counteroffensive: They are bent on shielding their boss up to the very last minute, for which they need to hold onto the party leadership.

They may also be hoping that the Constitutional Court will overturn the parliamentary impeachment, therefore giving them a chance to recoup before the presidential election.

Even if the top court upholds Park’s impeachment, Park loyalists may well seek to wield their political clout as a party based in the southeastern areas and which could sway the election if it turns out to be a close fight between two leading candidates.

Some observers are also of the opinion that the Park loyalists will never leave the party so as not to lose its 3 million rank-and-file members as well as assets such as real estate and government subsidies.

The Park loyalists have regrouped themselves into what they call “a conservatives’ alliance for reform and integration.” Few people would agree that they could reform anything, as they themselves should be the subject of reform.

The seven weeks of candlelight vigils and the overwhelming vote in favor of Park’s impeachment offered a clear message that the people want not only Park but also her loyalists in the ruling party to go.

The reason people want the Park loyalists to leave is that, as Kim Moo-sung said, they were nothing more than “political slaves” of the incapable, dishonest president, turning the party into the private property of their boss.

One good case in point was the April 13 parliamentary election, in which Park and her underlings in the party gave nominations to candidates mostly based on their loyalty to her. The Saenuri Party would not be in such a severe crisis if it had humbly heeded the warning people gave at that time through the party’s devastating defeat.

Now Park loyalists say that conservatives in the country will perish if they take a backseat. The truth is the opposite. The party will never be able to recover from the crisis and rebuild itself as a healthy, responsible representative of conservatives as long as the Park loyalists do not reflect on their misdeeds and take due responsibility.