[Editorial] GNP: What Counts More Is What Happens After Choe’s Resignation

Grand National Party (GNP) Chairman Choe Byung-yul has declared his willingness to resign. He said he would serve as a foot soldier after a new chairman is elected at a temporary party convention. We see this as an inevitable course of action. If a political party is in crisis because it has failed to respond to demands for change from within and outside, its chairman will need to make a self-sacrificing resolution.

The GNP must be born again. If it ends up patching up the conflict, Choe’s resignation as chairman will be meaningless. As he said, the GNP should be born again as a new forward-looking national party which is based on rationalism with conviction in democracy and the free market.

Choe said, “The pro-North Korean, anti-American Roh Moo Hyun regime and the radical left, which is disguised as a civil society group, are fanatically attempting to destroy the GNP and sound conservatism by brandishing probes into slush funds related to the presidential race of last year.” It’s hard to tell how much truth is into his remarks. If they are true, the GNP cannot rise above the criticism.

If the GNP had not neglected to purify itself as the representative of sound conservative policy, it could have not been what it is today. Its slush funds are the result of a combination of its inertia, its persistence to its vested interests--which blinded it about the changes of time--and its idle understanding of the state of affairs.

Based on humble self-criticism, the GNP should remap its future. We don’t know who would head the party, but he or she should be a person of integrity and strength who will accommodate genuine conservative force. The minorities should help. If there is another conflict over the party’s nomination of legislature candidates, the control over the party or the new party convention, it will end the party for good. Factional and personal interests should be put aside.

The future of this country depends on the outcome of the April National Assembly elections. The GNP should woo voters with a clarified identity, new people, and a new system.