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.
Main opposition breakup accelerates
NPAD defector Chun to launch new party in Jan.
By Jun Ji-hye
Rep. Chun Jung-bae
By Jun Ji-hye
Opposition-turned-independent lawmaker Chun Jung-bae announced a plan Sunday to launch a new political party in January and vowed to secure a victory in the April 2016 general election.
Chun, a former member of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD), said his new party, tentatively named “the Reformative People’s Party,” will completely realign the nation’s politics.
“I will work together with anyone who shares the value of reform, regardless of their current commitment to the existing parties,” Chun told reporters Sunday at the National Assembly.
The five-term lawmaker underlined that he will include the public in the preparatory process.
The party aims for victories in the general election and the presidential election. Chun suggested a middle path as a policy direction of the new party.
“The new party will exclude both extremes,” he said. “It will embrace moderate progressivism and rational conservatism, and seek harmony among various positions.”
The announcement comes amid an escalating internal feud in the NPAD between those who follow the legacy of late President Roh Moo-hyun and the others who do not.
Chun left the largest opposition party early this year, and won a parliamentary seat in Gwangju as an independent during the April 29 by-election. Since then, speculation over his possible launch of a new political party have abounded in Gwangju, the heart of liberal politics. Chun’s victory in Gwangju over an NPAD candidate in the southwestern city was widely seen as result of Gwangju voters’ weariness over the current NPAD leadership dominated by the pro-Roh faction.
Chun’s declaration followed an earlier announcement of a plan by former three-term South Jeolla Province Governor Park Joon-young to set up a new party, tentatively named “the New Democratic Party,” by the end of this year.
Park also broke away from the NPAD in July in opposition to Chairman Moon Jae-in’s leadership. Moon served as chief of staff under the late Roh’s administration.
The opposition senior figures’ consecutive announcements to launch new parties are apparently worrying mainstream members of the NPAD as the moves could accelerate defections of non-mainstream members, currently in an ongoing spat with the pro-Roh faction in the party. And this deepening division will apparently work to the advantage of the ruling Saenuri Party during the next general election.
In-house feuding continued on the day of Chun’s press conference. Former NPAD co-chairman Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo also held a press conference where he slammed Moon’s controversial reform measures that won approval from the party’s central committee last week.
Moon and Ahn have been in conflict over Moon’s recent proposal to hold a vote of confidence on his leadership.
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