With a sense of crisis hanging over the ruling party after its crushing defeat in the general elections, the emergency leadership continued to make desperate moves Friday to normalize party operations and regain control, such as by inviting all defectors back to the party.
Following a decision late Thursday evening to embrace “all that share the party‘s conservative platform,” the party’s new interim leader Rep. Won Yoo-chul vowed to elect a new leadership earlier than scheduled next month to include all voices and factions. Won, who has been the party’s floor leader, took over the seat left by former chairman Rep. Kim Moo-sung, who resigned over the election defeat that left the party without majority status.
Soon after the leadership’s decision, Rep. Ahn Sang-soo and Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun applied to rejoin the party Friday. They are among the seven defectors who had left in protest to being dropped from the party’s nominations and won in their constituencies as independents.
“The whole Saenuri leadership should take responsibility,” Won said in a press conference. “It is not the time to pay blame games with one another. We all should blame ourselves for the defeat. ... In order to reach out to the people, we will invite outside experts to join the emergency leadership,” he said.
The Saenuri Party’s emergency committee chairman Rep. Won Yoo-chul leaves after holding a press conference at the National Assembly on Friday. Yonhap
But efforts to overhaul the faltering party already appeared to be facing challenges, as its factions remained split over how to steer the party in the postelection session as well as whether to embrace defectors such as Rep. Yoo Seong-min, whom the party had vowed never to bring back.
Though the lawmaker-elect in the party’s stronghold Daegu has reportedly decided to rejoin the party, the interim leader said that it was “inappropriate” to discuss whether to accept Yoo, who had been branded a “betrayer” by President Park Geun-hye for protesting her policy agenda last year.
Some dissenting members, however, countered that Yoo, who won with a whopping 75.7 percent of votes, should come back and add more seats to the embattled party. The party, with 122 seats, is one seat short of its counterpart The MInjoo Party of Korea.
“(Defectors such as Yoo’s) coming back to the party should take place automatically,” said senior Rep. Lee Hye-hoon in a media interview. “It is something that we should not take for granted. Even a single seat is crucial to our party,’ she said. The fourth-term lawmaker added that the faction close to the President Park Geun-hye should be held accountable for the election defeat and that members of the pro-Park faction, such as leader Won, should be denied an opportunity to govern the faltering party.
Unlike the three defectors who are eager to come back to the party, the other four independents, including Rep. Joo Ho-young, have yet to publicly announce that they would come back. They reportedly said their decisions would be made after “consulting” with their electorate.
Meanwhile, the feud-ridden party also struggled over other legislative agenda items in the upcoming Assembly. One of them was their previous pledge to amend the law that prohibits the majority party from passing a bill without the consent of three-fifths of attending members.
Before entering the campaign for the Wednesday elections, the conservative party had touted that it would secure more than 180 seats and push to change the law. Interim leader Yoo vowed to push the agenda despite their election defeat.
By Yeo Jun-suk (
jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com)