The country’s progressive forces are teetering on the brink of collapse in the wake of a failed attempt by the minor opposition Unified Progressive Party to kick out two lawmakers selected through a rigged ballot to pick proportional representation candidates.
In its meeting of incumbent lawmakers Thursday, the UPP voted down a motion to oust Reps. Lee Seok-ki and Kim Jae-yeon, who have refused to forfeit their parliamentary seats.
Of the party’s 13 lawmakers, 12 voted and five of them abstained. Seven cast ballots and six were in favor of their expulsion, but one abstention vote was cast again. Under the Political Parties Act, more than half of the incumbent lawmakers of a party ― seven in this case ― should cast yes votes in order to expel a fellow lawmaker.
Lee welcomed the result, saying, ``Today is the day the truth won and the liberals won.’’ Rather, we believe, Thursday will be remembered as the day the truth lost and the liberals fell apart.
The repercussions are serious and now the left-wing party is engulfed by extreme chaos. Its online bulletin has been plastered with postings by party members threatening they would leave the party. There is a possibility that members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), a labor umbrella group that forms the backbone of the UPP, may bolt from the party en masse.
All the issues date back to April, when the country’s third-largest party was rattled after an internal investigation concluded that the ballot was rigged. In its wake, all of the party members who won candidacies in the primary stepped down except Lee and Kim.
Now, the party’s month-long effort to renovate itself and uproot pro-North Korea elements is on the verge of collapse and its old mainstream faction, which mostly consists of North Korea sympathizers, is reportedly poised to nullify the investigation results of the rigged primary.
It’s certain that the two lawmakers were elected through an unprecedented example of election rigging here and therefore, they are not qualified to represent the people. Lee is even being probed by the prosecution for possible involvement in a fraudulent case in which a company he ran inflated PR expenses for some candidates in the April 11 National Assembly elections.
Even the Hankyoreh, a progressive vernacular paper, lamented that a liberal party lacking self-purifying capabilities has no raison d’etre, asking who should be responsible for the violence that marred the party’s conference in mid-May.
The vote is certain to affect the opposition alliance for the Dec. 19 presidential election. As the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) attached the ousting of Lee and Kim from the party as a precondition for their partnership, the alliance could fall apart at any moment. However, if the UPP maintains its current form of two families under one roof, its influence on the election will be minimal.
The leftist party has two ways out of the current bottleneck. One is to support the parties’ legal steps to kick the two legislators out of the parliament. The National Assembly Act stipulates that the expulsion of a lawmaker is possible if more than two-thirds of the lawmakers agree.
The other is to recompose the progressive forces. That is, the UPP’s non-pro-North faction splits from the party and forms a new party free from anachronistic North Korea sympathizers, which would be joined by forces claiming environment protection and advocating the interests of non-regular workers and other underprivileged people.
The UPP stands at a crossroads. If the party fails to win the hearts and minds of the people, the country’s progressive forces will not survive.