Democratic Party chairman Rep. Kim Han-gil and independent Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo held an undisclosed meeting on Friday, but merely reaffirmed their previous stances, shedding no fresh light on their possible joint strategies for the forthcoming local elections.

At the meeting, Kim and Ahn were said to have agreed to cooperate in launching a special counsel investigation into the alleged election meddling by the country’s spy agency, and in abolishing the candidate nomination system in local elections.

“Serious doubts are raised about the credibility of the pledges of the Saenuri Party’s candidates when even presidential campaign pledges are so easily overturned,” the DP and Ahn’s spokespersons said in a joint briefing, adding that the two lawmakers agreed to continue communicating on related issues.

The meeting, arranged on Kim’s suggestion, had led to speculations that forming an alliance for the June 4 local elections would be high on the agenda despite repeated denials from both sides.

“This is not the time to discuss a pan-opposition alliance or (campaign) mergers. We will exchange views that can contribute to the advancement of politics,” Kim said as he headed into the meeting.

For its part, the ruling Saenuri Party, which hopes to use the local elections to further consolidate its position, continued its attack.

“The prevailing view is that the real aim is (forming) an election alliance for the June 4 local elections; in other words, it will be a meeting for distributing candidacies,” Saenuri Party secretary-general Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun said. He and that “position sharing” was “the oldest of the old politics,” and that the strategy was “political collusion.”

“If old politics is delivered when it was advertized as new politics, then that is not a mistake but political fraud.”

By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)