ED President's wrong path

Park, parties must meet halfway to avoid catastrophe

President Park Geun-hye and her loyalists in the governing Saenuri Party appear to have concluded that she won’t resign and are preparing for counteroffensives.

On Wednesday, presidential chief of staff Han Gwang-ok said, “Any procedure or decision that could contravene the Constitution is impossible,” indicating that the embattled leader won’t succumb to the opposition’s demand to resign.

In a major departure from her purported distancing from state affairs since the Choi Soon-sil scandal erupted, Park ordered a crackdown on a separate corruption scandal over the construction of a 101-story building in Busan the same day. She also appointed a new vice foreign minister in her first exercise of authority on personnel affairs since the scandal, and reportedly plans to chair a Cabinet meeting next week.

The change of atmosphere in the ruling camp appears intended to enable Park to buy time and reverse the situation amid a new move by her supporters to gather force again. The notion that the President’s culpability is not serious enough to force her out of the top elected post seems to have had an effect.

Could the nation’s first female head of state restore her bruised leadership with these new moves? Our answer is no. She might withstand the immediate storm by her time-consuming tactics, but it won’t be easy for her to turn back the clock.

Although she has not undergone questioning yet over the unprecedented influence-peddling scandal, what has been revealed so far has proven that she is no longer qualified to lead the nation. Many of the egregious suspicions about her relations with Choi might not be true, but her poor response to the revelations shows that Park and her administration cannot be left to run state affairs.

Opposition parties are accelerating their moves to take to the streets, encouraged by last weekend’s candlelit protests that drew a record crowd. But it’s naive if they think that Park will resign, alarmed by such rallies. Rather, their blind adherence to unconstitutional means might produce catastrophic results. The opposition can’t avoid criticism for having worsened the situation by turning a deaf ear to Park’s call for the National Assembly to recommend a nonpartisan prime minister. That is why the opposition parties should hurry to draw up measures to break through the current political deadlock, separate from their anti-Park movement.

What is needed most is for the ruling and opposition parties to pick an empowered prime minister based on their compromise as soon as possible. The new premier will be able to fill the power vacuum, whether Park quits in an “orderly exit” or cedes much of her executive power to the new premier. This could meet the expectations of many ordinary people who wish for stability.

If not, there is no other choice but to resort to impeachment, which is said to be favored by Park and her loyalists. She might serve out her five-year tenure if she survives the impeachment procedure, and we have to accept the result to keep our constitutional order going.