Senior members of the ruling Grand National Party will meet on Monday to discuss the future of the party reeling from mass resignations of its Supreme Council members and its party leader Rep. Hong Joon-pyo.
The meeting will be attended by lawmakers who have been elected three or more times, who will discuss issues surrounding the GNP’s leadership crisis, including the question of who will lead the emergency committee and how to make the conservative party anew.
“About 30 lawmakers elected three or more times have said that they will attend the meeting,” Rep. Hong Sa-duk told a local news agency. Hong, who is serving his sixth term, proposed the meeting. Hong is a prominent member of the pro-Park Geun-hye group within the GNP. Park is the strongest potential presidential candidate of the party.
“As the meeting will involve prominent lawmakers, it will be a place for expressing individual opinions rather than a meeting to decide direction or come to conclusion.”
Park, a former GNP leader, reportedly has the backing from the majority of GNP lawmakers to lead the emergency response committee.
Lawmakers who have publicly supported Park as the emergency committee chief include Rep. Nam Kyung-pil, who stepped down as a member of the GNP’s supreme council last week, saying it would be the most “proper way.”
While operating under a Park-led emergency committee appears to have gained support from the majority of GNP lawmakers, a small number of influential lawmakers have taken a stand against such developments.
Rep. Chung Mong-joon, former GNP leader, said in a statement that while he agrees with the party members’ view that the party should rally behind Park in seeking to bring about fundamental changes, the question of party leadership should be decided in a party convention.
Meanwhile, other GNP lawmakers have said that any changes the party makes must ring true with the public if they are to be effective.
“The reform should be such that the public should be able to see and feel, and sympathize with it,” Rep. Lee Ju-young, chief of GNP’s policy committee said on Sunday.
