New Party Drifting Away Intraparty Conflicts Re-emrging

The drive by Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) for creation of a new party seems to be getting zoomed in on a “recreation” centered around MDP’s presidential candidate Roh Moo-hyun. The group of candidates including independent Congressman Chong Mong-choon has refused to join in and, thus, the drive has not been successful so far.

The final future of the MDP’s drive is to be determined by Rep. Chong’s announcement for joining the race for the presidential election, which is expected sometime between Sep. 10 and Sep. 12. By Chong’s announcement, if the race should be among Lee Hui-chang, Roh and Chong, the maneuvering to create a new party centered around Chong would have to be put on hold.

Reflecting on this change, more and more moderate MDP members, who command the majority within the party, have recently been contending that a new presidential candidate should be selected after the party-recreation is over. One moderate congressman predicted, “Each of the people in the third candidate group has announced that each of them would take their own way. Thus, it is almost impossible to create a new party before the end of September. Each of the possible presidential candidates will maneuver his or her own way. Then, in late October or early November, they will start to unite.”

Accordingly, the dominant opinion for now within the MDP has it that the party will stick to recreation of the current MDP through changing the party name and pulling in new outside members. The MDP is expected to make an interim conclusion concerning the recreation at around Sep. 10.

In the meanwhile, the tension between pro-Roh camp and anti-Roh is emerging on the surface again.

Candidate Roh’s Chief of Staff Chong Dong-chae alleged on Sep. 3, “Now the future is unclear only for the MDP. Under these circumstances, if we get into the Thanksgiving break without any change, it’s like we are giving up our shot at the next presidential election.” In that context, he strongly argued for structuring the party’s system for the upcoming election by creating a committee that will command the MDP’s election preparations.

On the other hand, anti-Roh members like Rep. Song Suk-chan urged for Roh’s resignation again and announced that they would wage an endorsement campaign to make Roh step down. By arbitration of Kim Young-bae, who is in charge of creating a new party, they put off the endorsement campaign for now. But, once Rep. Lee In-jae comes back from Mongol and Russia at around Sep. 11, the situation might change dramatically depending on Lee’s decisions.

But many MDP members brush off the possible negative effects of the campaign since they consider that there is a pretty slim chance of unification of Rep. Chong and the members outside the mainstream.

One senior member of the MDP said, “The MDP members Rep. Chong wants to unite with are not our party members outside the mainstream, but the reform-oriented members in 40s and 50s such as Kim Kun-tae and Chong Dong-young.” Rep. Chong has recently tried in vain to contact them. Thus, he puts further maneuvering on hold now.

Jeong-Hun Kim jnghn@donga.com