By Oh Young-jin
Key pieces have been missing in a puzzle about why President Park Geun-hye has acted in such a, well, puzzling way.
Then, some of them fell into place Tuesday, when Rep. Chung Jin-suk, the ruling Saenuri Party floor leader, gave a media briefing about the 55-minute meeting he, together with Rep. Lee Jung-hyun, the party chairman, had with President Park. The emerging picture shows as much as follows.
First, Park has no intention to quit now. Second, she will sit tight to see Friday’s vote on an impeachment motion against her. Third and rather fantastically, she still holds on to the hope that the motion could be voted down, and that even if it is passed she could be exonerated by the Constitutional Court and get politically redemption.
If you find the denouement of this plot sounds familiar, you are right. It is as if a leaf from the late President Roh Moo-hyun’s political playbook has fluttered to the ground.
It has become obvious that Park has tried to emulate Roh all along.
Out of blue she suggested a constitutional change of the current presidential system, days before the current influence-peddling and cronyism scandal erupted. In 2007, she called President Roh a “bad president” for proposing revising the Constitution to drop the current five-year single presidency to opt for the U.S. style of two four-year terms. At the time, he had less than one year left in office. Roh’s proposal gained bipartisan support but was completely ignored by incoming president Lee Myung-bak.
The model Park is now pursuing is something else: Roh’s political revival came after he was impeached in March 2004, but was acquitted by the Constitutional Court two months later. In between, Roh’s Woori Party attained the majority in the general elections thanks to the voters’ anger directed against his antagonists. The irony is that the opposition Grand National Party, the predecessor of the ruling Saenuri Party, was devastated in the elections, paving the way for President Park to take over as chairwoman. Park’s real rise to the throne started then.
However, the President’s wishful thinking may get in the way of seeing the distinct differences between her and Roh.
Park has admitted to delegating her presidential powers to her longtime friend, Choi Soon-sil, who is accused of appointing her associates as ministers and presidential aides. Park refused to cooperate with a prosecution probe but was still cited as suspect in Choi’s extortion scheme against chaebol.
Park’s greatest crime that is not transcribed onto the official list of charges is the destruction of trust in the office of the presidency, and the subsequent sense of hopelessness among the people that may take a great deal of time to heal.
Roh was charged of electioneering on the basis of a remark in a televised question-and-answer session with television journalists.
Park’s approval rating is now down at an unprecedented 4 percent.
For Roh, about three quarters of the people thought that what he was accused of was unworthy of impeachment and a simple apology should have let him go.
For Park, millions of people have staged candlelit protests on the sixth Saturday so far to demand her resignation. They have remarkably maintained peace in their demonstrations, even when they marched 100 meters away from the perimeter of Cheong Wa Dae. Even middle and high school students feel ashamed of her being an avatar of the daughter of a shaman-turned-Christian minister.
For Park, few of the Saenuri Party lawmakers have sympathy toward her ― the No. 1 party member ― with some collaborating with the opposition parties in their joint effort to kick her out. Even her loyalists have advised her to accept early retirement.
For Roh, nearly 100 lawmakers staged a sit-in to prevent the coalition of opposition party from ramming the impeachment motion through. Still chiseled in the public’s collective mind is one of pro-Roh lawmakers seen sitting and crying on the floor near the speaker’s podium after their attempt to thwart it failed.
If Park thinks she can pull it off as Roh did, she should consider herself as a case of cognitive dissonance gone wild. The sooner she wakes up from her Roh dream, the better for her and, most of all, for the country.
Oh Young-jin is The Korea Times’ chief editorial writer. Contact foolsdie5@ktimes.com and foolsdie@gmail.com.