Jun Ji-hye, a reporter at the finance desk of The Korea Times, focuses primarily on economic policy and government agencies, mainly covering the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Ministry of Budget and Planning, the National Tax Service and the Korea Customs Service. She previously covered financial authorities, including the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service, and earlier worked on the political, city and business desks, reporting on a wide range of issues.
Is new opposition alliance presenting new politics?
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Reps. Kim Han-gil, left, and Ahn Cheol-soo, co-chairmen of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, respond to participants at an event held at the Olympic Hall in Seoul Olympic Park, on March 26, to officially launch the coalition between the Ahn’s camp and the then-Democratic Party. / Korea Times photo by Wang Tae-seog
By Jun Ji-hye
By Jun Ji-hye
The name of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) party offered the biggest indication yet of the two opposition forces’ will to steer the nation in the direction of new politics.
Indeed, the participation of then independent lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo, whose popularity surged in the buildup to the 2012 presidential election as a massager of new politics, further heightened this expectation, culminating in the merger of the then main opposition Democratic Party (DP) and Ahn’s camp in early March.
The expectation was evidenced by increasing approval ratings for the opposition’s merger. At the time of the announcement of their merger plan, polls showed that the coalition was rapidly closing up on the popularity of the ruling Saenuri Party by receiving some 30 percent of ratings.
Recent events have however demonstrated its inability to sustain the popularity, as the polls continue to show how it is losing ground.
In a Gallop survey announced Friday, the NPAD garnered only 23 percent compared to the governing party’s 39 percent. This latest poll results marks the ninth consecutive week of the NPAD’s declining approval ratings.
Reps. Kim Han-gil, left, and Ahn Cheol-soo, co-chairmen of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, bow at the National Assembly on April 10, making apology for the party’s reversal of its campaign pledge to abolish the practice of parties nominating candidates in local polls. The party plans to maintain the current nomination system based on the results of an opinion poll. / Korea Times photo by Oh Dae-geun
Yoon Hee-woong, Min Consulting’s head of public opinion research, attributed the growing public distrust of political parties following the Sewol disaster as one of the possible contributory factors to the NPAD’s falling approval ratings.
However, he added that other critical problems within the opposition party might be denting its fortunes.
“The party failed to display its reliability and stability amid the internal conflicts in the process of nominating candidates for the June 4 local elections,” said Yoon. “Those, who expected the party to show harmony and unification, namely new politics, were apparently disappointed and decided to waiver their support.”
Internal conflicts in Gwangju
Yoon’s remarks referred to a series of internal squabbles among NPAD members competing for the party’s tickets for the upcoming local polls.
The biggest manifest of the party’s internal feud unfolded in the Gwangju region.
In the biggest fallout so far, second-term lawmaker Lee Yong-sup, announced his decision to quit his parliamentary seat in protest against the party’s unilateral decision to select Yoon Jang-hyun as its final candidate for the Gwangju mayoral election.
Yoon’s selection has attracted backlash from other hopefuls, who criticized Reps. Kim Han-gil and Ahn Cheol-soo, co-chairmen of the NPAD for making the decision without conducting the primary.
According to some observers, this conflict was bound to happen. From the moment the two opposition forces decided to merge, the vast disparity of their parliamentary seats ― the DP held 126, while the Ahn camp had only two, including his own, was set to pose a challenge down the road.
Lee Yong-sup of the main opposition New PoliticsAlliance for Democracy speaks at a news conference at the National Assembly on May 7. He announced he will quit his parliamentary seat in protest against the party’s “unilateral” decision to nominate Yoon Jang-hyun as candidate for mayor of Gwangju in the June 4 local elections. He said he intends to run as an independent. / Yonhap
Most analysts saw this arrangement as a possible source of a power struggle between the two sides. Despite agreeing to fill the party’s Supreme Council with the same number of members from each side, the question of how the two camps could possibly coexist as one remained unanswered.
The nomination of Yoon Jang-hyun was viewed as the DP side making a concession to the Ahn camp, as Yoon had worked as a co-chairman of Ahn’s preparatory committee then tasked with launching Ahn’s own political party.
The two leaders however denied the rumors, saying that they tried to make the best choice for Gwangju citizens.
Ahn even said Yoon can become the second Park Won-soon, the incumbent mayor of Seoul.
Park was an independent candidate who was selected as the opposition’s single candidate to run for the Seoul mayoral by-election in 2011 after beating Rep. Park Young-sun of the DP in a primary. Since then, the mayor, who joined the DP after being elected, has enjoyed high approval ratings.
“Yoon is a highly qualified figure who can make a considerable change in Gwangju. I believe the new politics can be achieved by choosing a new figure who has been out of existing politics,” said Ahn.
He added, “Yoon is a noted civic activist who has led a civil-rights movement for more than 30 years.” He stressed the similarity between Yoon and Mayor Park _ Park was a civil-rights lawyer.
Ahn’s explanation, however, failed to resolve the party’s internal feud as Lee Yong-sup as well as Gwangju’s sitting Mayor Kang Un-tae declared their decisions to run as independent candidates after resigning from the party.
The unilateral decision to nominate Yoon has triggered two undesirable consequences. It has caused a fight over a position, which Ahn previously deplored as one of the bad habits of the old politics of entrenched interests. It has also ruffled the feathers of some opposition candidates in the region with the risk of splitting votes from opposition supporters.
“Nominating Yoon amounts to parachute appointment that Ahn has been criticizing. He lost a lot from the decision, while earning little,” said Lee Kang-yun, a journalist-turned-commentator. “Voters and experts mostly agreed with the fact that Ahn has great potential to be the opposition’s heavyweight, but the expectation has somewhat disappeared.”
Lee argued that the two leaders’ secretive discussion can never create the second Park Won-soon, as a popular politician can only be made with genuine support from the electorate.
“At least, Park underwent the primary against hopefuls from the DP,” said Lee. “Ahn and the NPAD have totally failed to show new politics to the public.”
Gyeonggi Province is another region in which NPAD hopefuls were battling each other.
Sometime in mid April, Rep. Kim Jin-pyo decided to boycott the primary, in protest over the party’s way of conducting it, which he argued worked favorably for Kim Sang-gon, former superintendent of Gyeonggi Province Office of Education.
Rep. Kim was a member of the DP, while Kim Sang-gon was viewed as Ahn’s aide. He however returned to the race after a few days of boycott, and won the party ticket on Sunday.
Bae Jong-chan, chief director at Research and Research, an opinion survey company, claimed that the NPAD failed to unite party members from the two sides and to earn public support.
“One of the most significant tasks to achieve new politics is formation of consensus with party members, which will naturally attract public support,” said Bae. “Creation of a party feud made it difficult to spread their emphasis on pushing for new politics.”
Question of leadership
Questions also arose over the leadership of Kim and Ahn because of criticism of them overly relying on opinion polls to make decisions on major issues, rather than persuading members towards a common consensus.
For instance, when the opposition party backtracked on its original stance not to nominate candidates for lower-level municipal and provincial council elections for the June 4 polls, the two decided to conduct an opinion poll as the most convenient way to resolve the disagreement. Similarly, it used opinion polls to decide whether to agree with the ruling Saenuri Party to pass a long-overdue basic pension bill.
As for the nomination system, some hardliners called for its abolishment all together, in order to fulfill its campaign pledge made during the 2012 presidential election. With regard to the basic pension, some strongly disagreed with the passage, saying the ruling party’s measure to link the basic pension scheme to the national pension system will work unfavorably against young adults and middle-aged people who have diligently contributed to the national pension fund over the years.
Ahn and Kim apparently believed that using the opinion polls was the easiest and the most convenient way of resolving opposing opinions between members.
But that move on the contrary is triggering questions about whether they have the ability to keep the party going.
“Leaders are people who guide members to work toward a common goal. Their dependence on the opinion polls just gave prominence to their vague attitudes,” said commentator Lee.
“Such attitude consequently resulted in decrease in the party’s approval ratings, and this deprived the opposition party of its initiative to take on the governing party.”