By Jun Ji-hye
The main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) decided Monday to temporarily suspend its preparations for a national convention in order to concentrate on attacking President Park Geun-hye over the unfolding “memogate” scandal.
The party was originally planning to determine rules for the party election to elect a new chairman, including the composition of the electors, during its Monday meeting.
Once the rules are settled, three political heavyweights ― Reps. Moon Jae-in, Park Jie-won and Chung Sye-kyun ― who are looking to seize the chairmanship of the largest opposition party, were supposed to decide when to resign from their current positions as members of the party’s emergency planning committee.
But instead, the NPAD refrained from making those decisions, saying all of its preparations for the national convention would be suspended until next Tuesday.
The National Assembly plans to complete an emergency questioning session early next week in which lawmakers will call on those involved in the scandal. The session is scheduled to begin Monday and continue through Tuesday.
“The decision was made to devote all the power and resources of the party to attack the Park government at next week’s session,” said an official from the NPAD’s press office.
The possible resignation of members of the emergency committee, which is playing a role as a decision-making body at the moment, will not help that objective, he said.
He added, “If the NPAD went ahead with preparations for the convention as planned, the media and public attention would be decentralized from the scandal. We didn’t want that.”
The political scandal centers on a leaked internal document from the presidential office drawn up by a former Cheong Wa Dae official, indicating that Park’s former aide, Jeong Yun-hoe, meddled in state affairs and was engaged in a power struggle with Park Ji-man, her younger brother.
The official added the temporary suspension of preparations does not mean that the convention will be postponed. “We expect the party election to be held as scheduled,” he said.
When asked about his position, Rep. Park said, “I am thinking of stepping down from the committee around next weekend after the Assembly’s questioning session is all finished.”
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