ED Reform goes nowhere

Little has changed since Park's impeachment

Two years have passed since former President Park Geun-hye was ousted from power for her involvement in a massive power abuse and corruption scandal. On March 10, 2017, the Constitutional Court approved Park's impeachment which passed through the National Assembly in December 2016.

The unprecedented presidential impeachment has left a painful lesson for Koreans. It was a clear manifestation of the people's aspirations for democracy. Park's ouster could not have been possible had it not been for massive candlelit rallies against her and her government.

Marking the second anniversary of the impeachment ruling, we need to shed light on what changes the “Candlelit Revolution” has brought to the country. Most of all, Park's fall has restored the democratic system. No one can tolerate her abuse of power, which was in blatant disregard for the Constitution and the law.

The people elected Moon Jae-in, a liberal opposition politician, as their new leader in the May 2017 poll. President Moon has promised to change the nation's governance structure in a bid to stop power abuse, corruption and influence peddling.

At the core of his reform commitment is revising the Constitution to prevent a president from monopolizing power ― a root cause of corruption and power abuse as seen in the cases of most former presidents.

President Moon strongly pushed for the constitutional amendment in his first year in office. However, his plan appears to have fizzled due to wide differences between the ruling and opposition parties about how to change the power structure. Simply put, narrow-minded partisanship and political bickering have derailed Moon's efforts to decentralize power.

President Moon's other important priorities are to eliminate the “accumulated evils” of our society, especially those of past administrations. His goal is to create a new nation that is fair, just and equitable. To achieve this, he has presented reform of the prosecution, the police and the judiciary.

Moon has also vowed to limit the power of the prosecution, which has long served as the handmaiden of the political elite, while strengthening the role of police in criminal investigations. He has also pressed ahead with reform of the judiciary to prevent abuse of its authority to curry favor with society's elites.

Unfortunately, Moon's reform policies have failed to make progress. More and more people are complaining that little has changed.

Worse, the nation is now more ideologically divided into the right and the left. Conservative forces, including the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, are tilting toward the far right. They are even calling for Park's release. This is a cause for concern because extremes undermine social cohesion and national harmony.

It is now high time to reflect on the meaning of the presidential impeachment. Then we have to find how to change the nation for the better to complete the Candlelit Revolution. If we fail to learn from the consequential developments, we have no bright future.