[Editorial] Important 70 Days for GNP (No More Internal Strife)

Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, leading presidential candidates from the Grand National Party, completed their registrations for the presidential nomination race yesterday. The election will be held on August 19, and the party convention will be held the following day; 70 days remain before the party officially selects its presidential nominee. Both candidates must show party members and the people why he or she should become president and how he or she can manage the country if elected as president. The role of both candidates is more significant as many people believe there are no strong candidates in the ruling party, essentially meaning that the presidential nomination race in the Grand National Party will become the presidential election itself.

People are serious, however, in watching the registrations of both candidates. Rather than paying attention to the promises from both candidates – Lee promises to “make a country with wealthy people, a warm-hearted society, and strong power” whereas candidate Park promises to “make this country into an advanced one in five years” – people may want to believe that no candidate can deny the outcome any longer and will apply for the presidential candidate by himself/herself. Both candidates had fought against each other too harshly, creating many conflicts and troubles during the process.

Both candidates cannot personally apply for the presidential election because they registered for the election race according to Article 57.2 of the public election law, newly created in 2005. Only one thing remains is to compete against each other on a fair-play basis. Nevertheless, both candidates negatively criticized each other from the first day of registration.

Lee’s camp raised suspicion that Park’s camp started to cooperate with the current ruling party to “kill Lee Myung-bak.” Park’s camp criticized that Lee and his camp have not clearly explained the suspicions that Park’s camp raised. Hearing the conflicts between the camps, we began to worry about whether the presidential nomination race can be successfully carried out, because nothing has changed except the registration itself.

Moreover, the current president is ignoring the election law, and the ex-president is directly getting involved in the election. In this situation, if the powerful candidates are continuously fighting against each other, nobody can guarantee that they will avoid becoming the objects of national abhorrence. Internal strife may lead to a mutual collapse.