By Na Jeong-ju
Rival factions of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) engaged in heated debate on Wednesday over rules on how to pick its leaders at the upcoming party convention, scheduled for Monday.
The controversy came after a court ruled a day earlier that the GNP’s new convention rules, which were approved at a party meeting early this month, are not effective due to procedural problems. Some participants had submitted a petition demanding their nullification to the Seoul Southern District Court following the meeting, claiming that the party avoided proper formalities in approving the rules.
The meeting should have been cancelled due to lack of a quorum, but the party approved the rules after receiving letters of agreement from 266 non-participating members, according to the petitioners.
The court ruling means the GNP should approve the new regulations again, in a legitimate way, ahead of the party convention or delay the gathering if doing so is impossible by then.
The GNP will convene an extraordinary meeting of its members on Saturday, two days before the convention, to vote on the new rules, party officials said.
However, a group of lawmakers affiliated with President Lee Myung-bak called for more intraparty deliberations on changing the rules, saying the new rules are deemed discriminative against some candidates for the GNP leadership. They demanded the convention be held as scheduled with the old rules, or be delayed.
Under the new regulations, voting rights to pick new party leaders will be given to the 210,000-strong members compared with the current 10,000. Also, the party should reflect the results of public opinion polls in counting valid votes. The portion of the opinion polls accounts for 30 percent of the total votes.
The pro-Lee lawmakers claim that reflecting the opinion polls is not fair because it discriminates against candidates who are less popular among the public.
The dispute is expected to add to the turmoil inside the GNP, which is already embroiled in a blame game between candidates ahead of the crucial party convention.
The election is largely a three-way race among Reps. Hong Joon-pyo, Na Kyung-won and Won Hee-ryong. On Monday, Hong alleged that behind Won is a group of pro-Lee lawmakers, saying, “It’s nonsense to choose a candidate who is backed by those who ruined our party.”
Hong was mainly referring to the defeat the GNP suffered at the April 27 by-elections, where opposition candidates even took traditional GNP strongholds such as Bundang B district in Gyeonggi Province.
Won has denied any secret political deal with the group, saying Hong should stop attacking other candidates through groundless allegations.