Saenuri should display commitment to dismantle the party

Non-Park Geun-hye-faction lawmakers and non-mainstream politicians in the ruling Saenuri Party held a meeting to address current emergency situations on Sunday. “The Saenuri Party in the current form will never be able to keep sound values of conservatism and the Republic of Korea. We will seek to dismantle the party by taking responsibility for the current crisis," they said. “A non-party, all-nation cabinet should be urgently formed to normalize state administration. President Park Geun-hye should lay down her all rights and power." At the meeting, some lawmakers even mentioned the president’s resignation and impeachment. Even Saenuri Party lawmakers are making such argument because they judge that solutions based on common sense will be hardly effective and adequate enough to appease angry public sentiment that resulted in massive candlelight vigils.

In fact, if Saenuri is a properly functioning political party, its leadership, particularly pro-Park (Park Geun-hye) lawmakers who have enjoyed power under Park’s umbrella, should be the first to have made such argument. The public is holding not only President Park but also the Saenuri Party accountable for the ongoing crisis. In a Gallup Korea survey conducted last week, Saenuri’s approval rating stood at 17 percent, nearly half that of the main opposition Minjoo Party. The 17-percent level is the party's lowest approval rate since the inauguration of the Park administration.

Even so, the pro-Park faction is still seeking to stubbornly hold onto the party’s leadership. Saenuri Chairman Lee Jung-hyun and supreme council members held an emergency meeting on Sunday, and decided to hold an early party convention on January 21 to elect the party’s new leadership. Lee also said that he would resign as party chairman irrespective of political schedule, as soon as the next prime minister is appointed through agreement between the ruling and opposition parties, and a neutral cabinet is launched. The Saenuri chairman has changed his stance, after he stubbornly insisting that he would never be forced out, but such an inadequate measure of compromise will hardly be sufficient to persuade the non-Park faction and opposition parties, let alone the public. In an interview with the Busan Ilbo daily on Thursday, Lee said, “President Park was the only person who recognized my value. Even if I suffer political damage, I should be doing anything in reason that I can,” but the situation is too grave now to allow him to remain loyal to the troubled president.

With public trust in the party and the Park administration at rock bottom, if the pro-Park faction stays in party leadership, not only will it fail to save President Park but the Saenuri Party will collectively collapse as a whole. The current party leadership should immediately resign, and the Saenuri Party should find a way to replant buds of sound and reasonable conservatism through dismissal and reestablishment, or constructive dismantlement.

고미석기자 mskoh119@donga.com