Taking the floor at the National Assembly Wednesday, ruling party floor leader Yoo Seong-min stressed that it is time to do away with “ideological partisan politics” and engage in dialog based on consensus. Yoo said this was the only solution to addressing Korea’s problems of balancing growth and welfare, ensuring national security and countering the low birthrate and aging society and low youth employment among others.
Yoo also mentioned the need for the ruling Saenuri Party to be innovative in its conservatism and stand side by side with the “suffering” public. He said he dreams of conservatives who are “just, fair, sincere and hard working to create a warm community.”
He spoke strongly of a need to raise taxes in order to carry out welfare programs, contradicting the President Park Geun-hye’s statement that there would be no more increases. Yoo even said that corporate taxes should be raised, in contrast to the party line.
Yoo was not a conspicuous part of the leadership despite his recent election to the party whip post, thus fellow legislators must not have been expecting much from him. But when Yoo finished his speech, the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) responded with applause. Ruling party legislators lauded him as well while at the same time acknowledging coolly that there were some elements in his speech that did not follow the party line. Cheong Wa Dae also responded calmly, saying that Yoo spoke of his personal convictions. The presidential office was probably too preoccupied with the mounting tasks to reform civil servants’ pension and labor to take the speech as an upfront challenge.
Yoo’s introspective speech about the ruling party’s stance on welfare programs and on the future of the conservatives in Korea partly stems from the shifting political landscape in the nation. Next year, the nation holds general elections in April while the next presidential election comes in 2017. NPAD leader Moon Jae-in, who is all but expected to run in the latter, has slightly transitioned his political stance as well. Thus Yoo’s critics believe the fresh ideas came not through intense, internal discussions within the ruling party, but more to distinguish his political star. His new take on the conservatives would have been weightier had he taken it to the party for a rigorous discussion.
There seems to be a valuable angle in Yoo’s speech that the ruling party should hold on to. By calling for more taxes, reform for all including the conglomerates and equality before the law, Yoo says the goal is to create a warm community. In asking the opposition and to a certain extent his ruling party to drop partisanship and move toward “consensus politics,” he has suggested a political path that the public, weary of partisan politics, wants to take.