Opposition’s alliance with candlelight protestors to shoo away public

The main opposition Democratic Party will hold a “national campaign meeting to urge recovery of democracy and reform of the National Intelligence Service” at Cheonggye Plaza in Seoul at 6 p.m. on Saturday. The Democratic Party is requesting its member lawmakers travelling overseas to return early on, and all its members to attend the gathering. The move apparently reflects the party’s desperation, as it has failed to draw people’s attention and support despite its pledge to stage outdoor struggles as its last bargaining chip. However, such desperation should not lead to collusion with forces that deny the results of last year’s presidential election. It is a “Devil’s seduction.”

At Cheonggye Plaza at 7 p.m., about one hour after the party will hold the meeting, a candlelight vigil hosted by the “civil society coalition on national crisis situation against the National Intelligence Service’s illegal political plot of intervention in the presidential election” will take place. The party has not clarified its stance on whether it will participate in the rally or not, but it would be fair to call the gathering a joint meeting of the party and the “coalition of national crisis situation.” If the two sides have no intention to increase the scale of the gathering by mobilizing the party’s influence and the coalition’s capacity to mobilize people, there is no reason for the two sides to hold meetings at the same location in succession. At candlelight vigils that started in June, a number of slogans that are effectively linked to the denial of presidential election results have surfaced. If the Democratic Party serves as helper in this kind of meeting, the party’s claim that “it has no intention to deny election results or nullify the election” will hardly be convincing.

Park Seok-woon, co-chair of the Jinbo Corea (Progressive Korea) Coalition, the lead organization in charge of organizing the candlelight vigils, is a figure who was arrested for masterminding candlelight vigils against the resumption of U.S. beef import in 2008. He has been spearheading all different pro-North Korean, anti-American demonstrations, including rallies in Seattle against the signing of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in 2006, and a protest rally to destroy U.S. Gen. Douglas McArthur’s statue in Incheon in 2005. He also took part in “Hope Bus” protest last month, which turned a Hyundai Motor plant in Ulsan into an area of lawless violence. If the Democratic Party joins hands with them, it will lose not only justification for its outdoor struggle but also support from public as the main opposition party that took power twice in the past.

The ruling Saenuri Party should exert efforts to recover politics, rather than enjoying the Democratic Party’s ill-advised choice. The more politics negligent of people’s livelihood prevails, the more the ruling party is to blame.