[Editorial] Resonate with The People`s Sentiment

The inside of New Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) is boisterous day after day regarding how to react to the defeat in the recent by-elections, and largely to the acceleration of secession of the people`s sentiment. Some argue that the MDP`s image can be reformed by selecting candidates for the next year`s local and presidential elections rather early. But other groups, including the young faction, argue that reform of party-government-Cheong Wa Dae should come first to gain the people`s mind, that the early visualization of election candidates without reforms is nothing but a makeshift, which is not persuasive at all.

Unfortunately, such a controversy over `a prescription for the current situation` within the MDP is reflected as a strategic power-struggle among candidacy groups. It is, of course, true that personnel reform or early visualization of election candidates will change a person`s specific gravity within the party, and thus will affect the interests of candidacy groups. But it is no less deplorable that the MDP members appear to `fight over a rice-bawl` or `grumble at consecrated rice` to the people`s sight, who have been disappointed by and become cynical about this administration, when the party should be reborn through grave reflection.

If the controversy within the MDP is prolonged, and if a prescription is offered late, then the people, whose sentiment is already far away, will turn their backs on it. Even though various voices are coming out from the inside of the party, one thing is agreed on among them, that is, an awareness that it is an urgent and imminent task for the party to win the hearts of the people, that the ruling MDP will continue to wander aimlessly if it fails to do so. The answer should be sought right here. The only way is to make epochal changes over the interests of a clique or an individual on the basis of a common awareness that it is necessarily to regain the people`s sentiment immediately.

President Kim Dae-Jung, leader of the ruling MDP, is given the responsibility and authority to do so. President Kim had remained lukewarm towards the demands of reform from the young group and others. Thus, one could not help apprehending that an influential person of the party`s Donggyo-Dong faction, who is taking a leave apparently, is still exercising his power within the party. As a result, a vicious circle consisting of the deepening disappointment of the people and the hardening voices of the young group within the party has continued.

This administration is standing on a crossroad. It has to show its attempt at epochal changes over the interests of Donggyo-Dong faction or a particular candidacy group that can impress and resonate with the people. It has to show it`s will of self-reform and provide hope not by adopting a makeshift but by carrying out radical reform of party-government-Cheong Wa Dae at the peril of its life. Epochal changes with no attachment to a small interest, a small self. They are what the people`s sentiment is waiting for.