Roh Puts His Candidacy Up to Party

The Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) and the United Liberal Democrats (ULD) have begun to come up with measures to defuse crisis of their parties on June 14 after the crushing defeat in the local elections on June 13. However, they are suffering from differences within the parties over the measures.

In particular, the tension between Blue House and the MDP is increasing as some supreme leaders and reformists of the MDP require thorough investigation into Kim Hong-up, the second son of the president and his resignation from the post of lawmaker, the dissolving of the Kim Dae-jung Peace Foundation for the Asia-Pacific Region, the formation of nation-wide neutral parliament, resignation of the prime minister and resignation of some aides to the president.

After discussions on reform measures of the party in the Supreme Council, a consensus was made for the second reform and the launch of a special committee to address the intra-party problems.

MDP lawmaker Ahn Dong-sun said in the discussion that presidential candidate, Roh Moo-hyun and party leader, Han Hwa-gap must hold responsible for the outcome since they promised to do so. He went on to argue that the presidential hopeful, Roh Moo-hyun must step down from candidacy and take responsibility for the election result.

The supreme leaders of the MDP held a meeting with the leaders, aides and lawmakers attending and agreed to decide on when and how to put Roh and Han to a confidence vote.

In a press conference Roh said during the election campaign he deeply felt the publics anger against a series of scandals involving the ruling party and the outcome was expected. He went on to say that he would make good on his promise to put his presidential candidacy to a confidence vote by party members and leave details to the party leadership.

21 lawmakers including Kim Geun-tae, Chung Dong-young, senior advisors of MDP and Chung, Dong-chae, the chief secretary of the presidential candidate held a meeting this afternoon and announced a statement urging to sever the relationship with Chungwadae.

Such a move for the internal reform is expected to further expand across the party.

Meanwhile the leadership of ULD held a meeting at the party headquarters and said that the party would accept stern judgment and indicated its desire to resign for the party’s another leap forward for the future.

The party leadership tendered its resignation to party chairman Kim Jong-pil.

Young-Chan Yoon yyc11@donga.com