Self-professed pro-Park lawmakers must fear public judgment

Jeong Jin-seok, the floor leader of the ruling Saenuri Party, and Kim Gwang-rim, the chairman of the policy committee, stepped down Tuesday, taking the responsibility for the voting result on the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. “Taking responsibility is the basic function of conservative politics,” said the floor leader during an emergency briefing. “Regardless of factional interests, I hope they will maintain their integrity as responsible public officers who are to pursue national interests.” His remark is in effect aimed at the pro-Park (Park Geun-hye) leadership, who are ignoring the demand from the non-Park lawmakers that she should step down immediately.

Lee Jang-woo, a pro-Park lawmaker and a member of Saenuri’s supreme council, inveighed against non-Park figures including Kim Moo-sung and Yoo Seung-min, likening them to “children who abandoned their parents and brothers now poised to remove the pillars of the house.” However, they only followed the constitutional steps for the impeachment of Park, who has indeed defiled the office of state affairs; it is preposterous to liken it to mutiny. The pro-Park’s penchant for personal loyalty over national interests is far from the integrity of public officers, and their point of view, where the president is considered as the parent of the party, is worryingly anachronistic. Blinded by this extreme conservatism, the pro-Park leadership had treated President Park like the queen; naturally, there was no one to stop the abuse and deviation of power.

On Tuesday, the pro-Park group is launching a clique titled “The Alliance for Innovation and Integration.” The move appears to be a countermeasure against the emergency meeting on state affairs led by the non-mainstream lawmakers within Saenuri, but the consequences are easily predictable. Without any attempt to rekindle political power, the remnants of the pro-Park leadership will be seeking to safeguard their political advantage in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province, which used to be President Park’s stronghold. Even if Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations and the ruling party’s most favored candidate for presidency, comes back to Korea, it is doubtful if Mr. Ban will gladly take the role as the façade of a new Saenuri if the party equates individual loyalty with conservative virtue. If the pro-Park leadership, the policymakers who are paid with taxpayers' money, the only desirable solution would be for them to take the full responsibility of the current scandal and show remorse accordingly. The ruling party’s ethics committee had discussion on the level of punishment on President Park as it was aware of the incensed public sentiment.

On Sunday, the ruling and opposition parties agreed to put in place a special committee on constitutional amendment to address the chronic evils of imperial presidency well illustrated by President Park Geun-hye. Now is no time for any of the pro-Park or non-Park lawmakers to be pointing fingers at each other and ordering a defection from the party so as to get their hands on the party fund, amounting to about 50 billion won, and succeed Saenuri’s legitimacy. Korea’s conservative voters, who are proud of the history and success their country has achieved and concerned about its economy and security, are currently left with no political recourse. It is vital that a new conservative political party be created that can provide some hope for those people. If the two polarizing factions within the ruling party are having trouble staying in the same house, they can always make the reasonable choice of running in an election as two separate parties. Politicians come and go, but a political party must stay to safeguard the conservative values of liberal democracy and market economy.

eligius@donga.com