Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo quit as the co-chairman of his minor opposition People’s Party Wednesday over a campaign kickback scandal involving three party members. Ahn, an IT expert-turned-politician and a presidential hopeful, resigned from his post 149 days after being elected as the co-leader at the party’s inauguration ceremony on Feb. 2. Rep. Chun Jung-bae, co-chairman of the third-largest party, also stepped down with Ahn.
“Politics is about taking responsibility. I resign, taking full political responsibility for the scandal,’’ said Ahn in a press conference that followed a closed-door Supreme Council meeting.
The abrupt resignation of the two leaders has created plenty of chaos in the nascent party, although floor leader Park Jie-won will act as interim head until a new leader is chosen in February next year. Ahn himself has hit a snag in his bid to run in next year’s presidential election as the corruption scandal has tainted his trademark “new and clean politics.’’
The centrist party, which won 38 seats in the April 13 general election, has been reeling from the scandal since early June when the election watchdog accused the three, including two lawmakers, of accepting kickbacks from advertising firms.
Ahn’s departure appears inevitable, considering the public sentiment that turned negative after the court issued an arrest warrant for Wang Ju-hyeon, the party’s former deputy secretary general, earlier this week. The resignation also seems a well calculated move intended to help him stave off political challenges ― no longer harmed ― and help the People’s Party restore its tainted mantra of new politics.
But Ahn deserves criticism for having been complacent about the potentially explosive scandal. Right after the suspicions arose, he was busy protecting his officials all the way, saying he had been told that the suspicions were untrue.
The party’s internal investigation also came to a hasty conclusion, declaring them innocent without even questioning them in person. In the face of simmering public criticism, the party only decided to suspend the membership of the three if they were indicted.
All this reneges on the will of the people who propelled the new party into the third-largest political force in the last parliamentary polls. After all, it’s no exaggeration to say that Ahn’s call for new politics has been nothing more than an empty slogan.
But the crisis can be a blessing in disguise. If the People’s Party succeeds in using the scandal as an occasion to reinvent itself, there will be a future for Ahn as well as the party itself.