Ruling Camp Marketing Centrist Pragmatism
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
The governing Grand National Party (GNP) plans to establish scholarships for students from working-class families, as part of President Lee Myung-bak's pro-working-class initiative based on centrist pragmatism, party officials said Sunday.
Rep. Chin Soo-hee, president of the Yeoido Institute, the party's think tank, unveiled the plan during a recent meeting of the party's decision-making Supreme Council, they said.
Chin outlined a specific roadmap to raise about 3 billion won from GNP lawmakers, delegates and party members to support middle school, high school and college students from low-income families, the officials said.
If established, it will be the first political party-sponsored scholarships in Korean history.
President Lee's commitment for the underprivileged came after a survey conducted by the presidential office found about 70 percent of respondents think Lee has adopted policies from which only chaebol and high-income earners will benefit.
The survey also found more people said President Lee, who pledged to pursue centrist pragmatic policy during the 2007 campaign, was more conservative than Lee Hoi-chang, leader of the minor Liberty Forward Party who maintains a very conservative stance on major agendas such as North Korea and economic policy.
The results came after President Lee had a summit with U.S. President Barack Obama June 16 in Washington D.C., where the two leaders committed to pursuing peaceful reunification on the Korean Peninsula ``under market economy and free democracy'' in a joint statement.
Some North Korea experts said the statement would agitate the communist state.
About a week after the summit, North Korea criticized Lee for the commitment, saying the statement reveals South Korea's intention of reunifying the peninsula by absorbing the communist North.
Alarmed by the poll results, presidential secretaries, along with Cabinet ministers and ruling party leaders, hurriedly came up with a set of measures to improve the lives of middle-and low-income families.
But they showed few signs of toning down the hard-line North Korea policy as the North continued to escalate tensions through the second nuclear test and several missiles.
Household spending on private education and youth unemployment are the two policy problems that President Lee vowed to tackle for underprivileged families.
President Lee also called for more spending on working-class people in the second half of this year.
GNP Chairman Park Hee-tae noted that many people perceived President Lee as a leader of pro-high-income earners, not because the Lee government lacked policies that are friendly to low-income earners but because publicity activities were ineffective.
Following his comment, the GNP set up a body designed to raise awareness of Lee's working-class-friendly policies among the general public last month.
A GNP task force team aimed at revamping the ruling camp, meanwhile, unveiled a set of reform measures last Friday.
It called for a reshuffle of the Cabinet and the presidential office, and bottom-to-top approach in selecting candidates for parliamentary and local elections.
President Lee's picks of some Cabinet ministers and presidential secretaries, who made fortune through suspicious property trade and financial activities, drew criticism from his opponents as well as some ruling party lawmakers.
The task force team proposed government reshuffle to get rid of the negative image that President Lee and the ruling party advocate for the best interests of the wealthy class.