Talk of conservatives' integration likely to gain traction this week

Political conservatives' push for unity is expected to gain more traction this week as the main opposition party is set to take a crucial step to sever ties with corruption-tainted former President Park Geun-hye.

The ethics committee of the Liberty Korea Party (LKP) is expected to convene Tuesday or Wednesday to determine whether to accept its reform panel's recommendation to ask Park and two of her allies to leave the party.

Park's LKP affiliation has long been a hurdle to uniting the fractured conservative bloc, as reformist members of the splinter Bareun Party have called on the LKP to remove all traces of the disgraced leader.

(Yonhap)

The ethics committee's deliberation on Park's membership is forecast to spur the two conservative parties' moves toward the proposed merger.

Senior members of the parties have been seeking to create a special panel to push for the merger, which they believe would help rein in increasingly assertive liberal rivals and cement their parliamentary foothold.

The LKP hopes that the merger would take place before the minor party's leadership election slated for Nov. 13. LKP leader Hong Joo-pyo warned that after the election, conservatives' division would "ossify."

The Bareun Party splintered off from the LKP late last year amid a factional feud over a massive corruption scandal that led to the ousting of Park in March.

The merger of the parties would make the LKP the largest parliamentary force. The LKP currently has 107 legislators in the 299-seat National Assembly, while the Bareun Party has 20.

The ruling Democratic Party, which has 121 legislators -- putting it far short of a parliamentary majority -- is said to be seeking an alliance with the minor opposition People's Party, currently at 40 seats.

As the LKP's reform efforts have accelerated, speculation has risen that some Bareun Party members could defect to the LKP to push for what they call a "grand integration" among right-wing politicians.

Any defection would cause the Bareun Party to lose its status as a parliamentary negotiating bloc, for which at least 20 legislators is required. (Yonhap)