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| Ruling Saenuri Party Chairman Rep. Kim Moo-sung, center, heads to the party's Supreme Council meeting at the National Assembly in Seoul, Friday. / Yonhap |
By Kim Hyo-jin
A deepening factional conflict in the ruling Saenuri Party has caused a temporary shutdown of the nominations committee for the second straight day, Friday, casting concerns that the nomination procedure could be further prolonged ahead of the April 13 general elections.
With some committee members having boycotted the meeting scheduled for earlier in the day in protest after Chairman Rep. Kim Moo-sung disagreed with their list of nominations, the committee head Lee Hahn-koo cancelled the meeting.
"Lee unilaterally announced the cancellation of the meeting, saying it's impossible to function when members refuse to participate," Rep. Hwang Jin-ha, the party's secretary-general and a committee member, told reporters.
The committee members refused to continue their work, requesting an apology from Kim for harming the autonomy of the committee.
Kim on Wednesday raised questions over the results of the latest nominations that excluded high-profile lawmakers ― five-term Rep. Lee Jae-oh and Rep. Joo Ho-young, former minister of special affairs under the Lee Myung-bak administration.
The party's nomination committee has taken flak from the lawmakers excluded from the nominations following the disclosure of the list on Tuesday, in which those affiliated with Rep. Yoo Seong-min and former President Lee Myung-bak were mostly excluded. Yoo was a former party leader who has been estranged from President Park.
The losers have lashed out at Park loyalists and Lee Hahn-koo, Park's ally who is leading the nominations committee, claiming they launched an attack against adversaries to Park.
On Friday, the party faced a series of departures by its lawmakers. With the departure of the lawmakers excluded from the latest nominations speeding up, the expectation that they could form an alliance as an opposing force outside the party is growing.
However, political observers view that the move will hardly gain momentum as there is no key figure which they can create force with.
Rep. Ahn Sang-soo, former Incheon mayor, announced that he quit the party in protest of the result of the nominations.
"The party has vowed to apply the bottom-up nominating process, but it was all ruined while few people wielded power arbitrarily," Ahn said during a press conference.
"April 13 is a day to judge Lee Hahn-koo (head of the nominations committee) ― I will be back after winning a victory," he added, declaring to run as an independent candidate in Incheon.
Rep. Cho Hae-jin also followed suit. The lawmaker affiliated with Yoo had denounced the party leadership following his exclusion from nominations on Tuesday.
Rep. Joo Ho-young, a three-term lawmaker and former minister of special affairs under the previous Lee Myung-bak administration, held a press conference later that day, hinting at his departure from the party and the announcement of his possible independent candidacy.
"I will make my final decision after doing my utmost in appealing to the unfairness of the party in the results of the nominations," Joo said. "I'm considering a legal measure to stand against Lee, the head of the committee, who violated party rules."
There are five, including four lawmakers have so far quit the party amid widening chasm between the pro-Park and the opposing faction. Rep. Chin Young, who left the party on Thursday, is expected to join the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) to run as its candidate in his constituency Yongsan, Seoul.
"Party leader Kim Chong-in has tried to recruit him and we expect Chin will make a decision soon," an MPK party official said. Chin and Kim have reportedly had a close relationship while they worked in the ruling camp in preparation for the previous presidential election.
"The lawmakers are quitting the party in pursuit of their own interests but it remains to be seen if they could win a seat without running under the name of the ruling party," Park Myung-ho, a professor of political science at Dongguk University said. "Also, they will find it hard to join forces as their roots are all different and there's no one figure who can bring them together with charismatic leadership. The case is different than it was in 2008 when pro-Park members excluded from the nominations gathered under the leadership of Park."
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