[Editorial] President Kim Dae-Jung, No More Temporary Expedient

The nation is paying attention to a `meeting of the Millennium Democratic Party leaders` which is to be held in Cheongwadae in an effort to defuse the party`s internal crisis this afternoon. The nation is not interested in what kind of settlement plans the MDP leaders would make to solve the internal feud at today`s meeting. Rather, the nation is interested in whether President Kim Dae-Jung would provide concrete measures for the national reform.

People may not be interested in whether President Kim would not allow the resignation of the MDP`s Supreme Council members, or whether the Supreme Council members would accept the President`s refusal to accept the resignation. Whether the MDP holds the party`s national convention twice in next January and July or August, or whether the MDP should hold the party`s convetion in March and April in order to make the presidential candidate visible at early stage, is also the MDP`s internal affair. These are not the people`s primary interest.

Today, people are only interested in whether President Kim would provide concrete measures for the national reform. Therefore, President Kim should clearly recognize that today`s meeting is not a `meeting to solve the party`s internal feud`, but a meeting in which he provides `concrete measures for the reform to settle the administration of the national affairs`. President Kim should not consider the meeting as an occasion in which he can hear the opinions of the party leaders. President should know that people would no longer understand or forgive if he tends to settle the situation in such a way that simply `he would examine and decide if the leaders propose their opinions`.

The national reform is not a recent issue. It is an `old task` which has been procrastinated for about an year. When the young members of the MDP created the `first political stir` last December, President Kim promised that he would reform the administration of the national affairs after receiving Nobel Peace Prize. However, the promise was not kept. During the `second political stir` in May, the issue evaded due to the draught. This is not simply a matter that the president of the party did not keep the promise with the party members. Rather, President, as the highest person in charge of the administration of the national affairs, broke his promise with the people.

Temporary expedients, such as a particular person`s resignation from the party`s Supreme Council and the change of the party representative as well as the presidential secretaries, cannot be said of the national reform. Today`s crisis, that is, demand for the retirement of a particular person who resigned from the Supreme Council and a particular Cheongwadae secretary from the political circle, is only the result of the accumulated temporary expedients.

To speak repeatedly, temporary expedients can neither settle down already troubled administration of the national affairs, and nor can regain people`s support. President should no longer delay the national reform. President should provide concrete measures for the national reform today.