A former top aide to President Park Geun-hye, who earlier defected from the ruling conservative Saenuri Party amid nomination infighting, joined The Minjoo Party of Korea on Sunday, in time for the candidate registration for the April 13 general election.

“I hereby offer my support to the Minjoo Party’s efforts to defy authoritarianism and to improve the lives of people,” said third-termer Rep. Chin Young in Yongsan-gu, central Seoul.

The lawmaker defected from the Saenuri Party last Thursday, after the party’s nomination committee denied him qualification to rerun in his constituency -- where he has enjoyed a relatively steady approval rating for the past 12 years.

The Minjoo’s nomination committee immediately named Chin as the sole candidate for his current constituency, a position which had been kept vacant.
 
The lawmaker reproached his former party for playing factional games, publicly excluding those who are at odds with President Park Geun-hye.

“To me, politics should be about implementing pragmatic policies under a practicing leader, not about seeking factional interests under the pressure of a specific person,” Chin said, directly referring to the president.

“Looking back, I realize that my original political intentions have been blurred by power battles and factional divisions.”

His change of affiliation meant not just the probability of an extra parliamentary seat for the main opposition party in the nation’s capital, but also signaled cracks in the ruling party due to feuds.

The Saenuri Party is currently under fire for its series of election candidate nominations, which many regarded as an outright plot to filter out those who are not mainstreamers.

It also added weight to the Minjoo chief Kim Chong-in’s repeated condemnation of President Park’s failure of policies and lack of leadership.

“I appreciate Rep. Chin’s decision to continue his quest for democracy despite the political injustice that he faced,” Kim said.

“The ruling party’s recent trials make it hard to believe that it is functioning as a proper political party.”

Kim, much like Chin, had formerly been a top economic advisor to the president before he was brought to the opposition leadership earlier this year.

The reunion of the two former conservative figures, who are known to share their views on middle-of-the-road policies, raised expectations on the party’s expansion into the centrist swing voters’ group.

The judge-turned-lawmaker Chin won his first parliamentary term in the core Seoul constituency back in 2004, despite the public backlash that the then-Grand National Party faced after impeaching the late liberal President Roh Moo-hyun.

Ever since, he has served the president in close proximity, as vice chairman of Park’s presidential transition team after her election in 2012 and then as the new administration’s first health minister the following year.

But the centrist-conservative politician was at odds with the president when the latter scaled back several of her popular welfare campaign pledges, citing an unexpected tax revenue drop. He resigned from his ministerial post in protest at the government’s revised plan to restrict the duration of basic pension subscription.

In sharp contrast to him, Busan’s third-termer Rep. Cho Kyoung-tae had defected from the Minjoo earlier this year to join the Saenuri Party, claiming that his policy directions were more in line with the conservative camp.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)