Opposition blamed for empty talk of reform, integrity

The main opposition Democratic Party is considered to have lost ground after the swift passage of the revised bill on political funds Friday, figures inside and outside of the party said Monday.

The party should have prioritized political reform based on high integrity to be considered a party offering alternatives and able to take power, but lost its principles and cause by showing a vaguer attitude toward political reform than the ruling party, they said.

At a meeting of supreme council members Monday, party leader Sohn Hak-kyu did not mention the bill’s passage and instead criticized the government and ruling Grand National Party, saying, “In my visits to places across the nation, what I heard the most was ‘We won’t tolerate it any longer, let’s change the government.’”

Leading supreme council members Chung Dong-young and Chung Sye-kyun also kept mum on the bill’s passage.

This was in stark contrast to the response of the ruling party. At a supreme council meeting held the same day, leader Ahn Sang-soo said, “Careful handling is needed by thoroughly reviewing public opinion and legal principles.”

Hong Joon-pyo, a leading supreme council member, said, “Passing a bill to exonerate lawmakers is an unprecedented abuse of authority since the country’s liberation.”

Democratic Party floor leader Park Jie-won defended the bill’s passage, however, by saying the amendment is necessary to encourage individual donations and remedy what the Constitutional Court found unconstitutional. Park added that the lawmakers indicted in the lobbying scandal of the National Private Security Guards Friendship Council will not be exonerated if the amendment is signed into law.

Minutes of a subcommittee meeting Friday on the improvement of political funds showed that the Democratic Party was more committed to the bill’s passage than the ruling party.

Democratic Party lawmaker Baek Won-woo twice asked for confirmation from the committee, saying, “What I submitted won’t be scrapped. It’ll be handed over to a political reform committee, won’t it?”

In November last year, Baek was criticized for spearheading a revision to the political fund law to allow donations by organizations and companies and exempting lawmakers from disclosing donations they received.

When a bill to give lawmakers a pay raise of 5.1 percent was passed on Nov. 26 last year at a parliamentary steering committee in the wake of North Korea’s shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, no Democratic Party lawmaker opposed the passage despite what many considered bad timing.

If anything, the party’s vice floor leader Park Ki-choon argued for the necessity of the raise, saying, “Salaries of lawmakers are lower than those for deputy ministers.”

Mentioning that the presidential office implied a veto on the revision due to unfavorable public opinion and the necessity of political reform, a senior Democratic Party lawmaker said, “The president imbued the public with the perception that he is superior to the main opposition party (in morality).”

Kim Hyeong-joon, a political science professor at Myongji University in Seoul, said, “The Democratic Party claims that democracy has regressed since the inauguration of the Lee Myung-bak administration, but the attitudes it showed toward every case reminds the people how empty (the Democratic Party’s) campaigns for reform, democracy and progress are.”

jin0619@donga.com