Pro-Parks still confident of majority support in leadership race; non-Parks hint at mass defection

The ruling Saenuri Party’s two warring factions continued to fight for party control Wednesday, preparing for an all-out-war that could see one group leaving the party.　

Their conflict is likely to reach its peak as the party votes to select replacements for the current leadership, which is close to the impeached President Park Geun-hye.

Only 80 of the 128 Saenuri lawmakers showed up at the party’s general meeting, the first official get-together since the parliament passed the bill to impeach the president last Friday.

The nonmainstreamers who did attend were at odds with the majority pro-presidential group, who denounced the remarks made by reformist nonmainstreamers, while the latter blamed the former for attempting to deter the party’s decision on to expel the president from the party.

As soon as the meeting started, Reps. Jeong Woon-chun and Lee Eun-jae demanded that party chairman Rep. Lee Jung-hyun explain his earlier appointment of additional members to the party’s ethics committee.

Despite the pretext of “promoting balance,” the leadership’s action was largely deemed an attempt to exert influence upon the committee and thus to prevent it from imposing heavy sanctions on Park.

“The committee makes its decision on a majority vote, so adding eight new members to the conventional seven members is nothing other than the pro-Parks’ attempt to seize control,” said former committee chief Lee Jin-gon in a radio interview with SBS.

Lee and the committee members had resigned en masse the previous day, protesting against the leadership.

Current floor leader Rep. Chung Jin-suk, who is classified as a centrist figure within the party, also backed up the non-Park members’ complaints.

“The ethics committee is an organization which should absolutely maintain its neutrality,” Chung told reporters in a press briefing held shortly before the party meeting.

“Don’t (the pro-Park members) have the slightest idea on how the public is assessing the Saenuri Party? They all say that it is insane (to add committee members at the leadership’s will.”

The pro-Park group, however, skipped over the given dispute and shifted focus to the nonmainstreamers’ attacks on them. Of them was Rep. Kim Tae-heum’s description of the pro-Parks as “Choi Soon-sil’s men,” referring to their strongly suspected affiliation with the influence-peddling presidential aide.

Chairman Lee, while reiterating his earlier pledge to step down by next Wednesday, offered no specific explanation to the non-Park figures’ inquiries.

Making little progress on the current deadlock, both factions apparently concentrated on Friday’s vote to choose a new party leadership in the Assembly.

The nonmainstream cluster decided that it will run Reps. Na Kyung-won and Kim Se-yeon as floor leader and chief policymaker candidates respectively. The two positions are usually elected in a running mate system.

From the pro-Park group, Rep. Chung Woo-taik is considered a likely floor leader candidate.

A bigger contest, however, will take place Tuesday at the party’s national committee meeting, in which it will elect an emergency council and a chairperson to replace current leadership headed by Lee.

Rep. Yoo Seong-min, a symbolic non-Park figure who was previously a ranking member in the pro-Park camp, is expected to run.

The reformists have alluded that they are ready to defect from the party and create a new conservative political entity to start afresh ahead of the upcoming presidential election.

“People who are concerned about the nation’s economy and security are in need of a new conservative political party,” said Rep. Kim Moo-sung, a non-Park member and former Saenuri party chief.

By Bae Hyun-jung ()


koreaherald@heraldcorp.com