Park Geun-hye Former GNP Chairwoman

By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter

Seniority is considered evil, while new faces are portrayed as good, complained a three-term lawmaker who lost the nomination of the governing Grand National Party (GNP) Friday.

Rep. Kwon Oh-eul said a disregard of legislative experience was distinct in the governing party's selection of candidates to run in the April 9 elections.

Kwon is one of the 25 incumbents who failed to make the cut in the southeastern Gyeongsang Provinces, a stronghold for the conservative party. Chopping the senior lawmakers from the nomination is called a Friday night massacre.

Fifth-term GNP lawmaker Park Hee-tae, who was widely viewed as one of President Lee Myung-bak's confidants, also was a loser in the selection.

His elimination triggered wide repercussions as he appeared to have no good reason to be a target, except for being a multi-term lawmaker.

Similar criticism erupted inside the main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) over seniority in the selection.

But these people's voices are heard little in the parties' decision.

Political analyst Andy Jackson told The Korea Times that seniority certainly is a core qualification for lawmakers in the United States.

``Despite calls to 'throw the bums out,' American voters generally return incumbents to office,'' he said. ``As legislators gain experience, they learn how the system works and are better able to use that knowledge to get what they want.''

Jackson said seniority also allows them to become committee chairs and those factors mean that more senior lawmakers are better able to get government resources committed to their districts, which in turn makes them more popular and makes it more difficult for challengers to defeat them in the next election.

GNP selection committee Chairman Ahn Kang-min said the selection shows the governing party's decisiveness for reform but few accepted his remark at face value.

Peer Pressure

Peer pressure is known to be a factor behind the GNP's massive cut of incumbents. According to this theory, Ahn was pressed to replace legislators with aspiring politicians with no legislative experience, mainly because of his UDP counterpart, Park Jae-seung.

Park has enjoyed high popularity since he screened out all incumbents who'd broken laws.

A recent JoonAng Ilbo poll found 88.5 percent of respondents said Park has done a good job as the screening committee chairman.

The same survey also showed 34.5 percent of people answered they had a good impression of the UDP because of Park's straightforwardness.

Political analysts said soaring popularity for the UDP selection chairman has caused GNP counterpart Ahn to feel pressure and Ahn was motivated to seek a vigorous reform drive in the GNP selection.

Rise of Independents

The cut of incumbents is likely to have a considerable impact on election results as many of them expressed their willingness to run in the election as independents.

Rep. Kim Moo-sung, who is a right-hand man of Rep. Park and was eliminated in the Friday selection, announced his defection from the GNP to run as an independent.

The three-term lawmaker claimed a conspiracy is underway inside the party, which is targeting close aides of Rep. Park in an attempt to drive them out.

Rep. Yoo Ki-june said his elimination is purely because he supports Park Geun-hye.

He had worked for the former party chairwoman as spokesperson during the GNP primaries last year.

Yoo will also leave the party next week to run as independent.

``Rep. Park said she looked forward to seeing me again in the parliament after the election,'' Rep. Yoo said.

hkang@koreatimes.co.kr