By Kang Seung-woo
The feud over a revision to the National Assembly Law between Cheong Wa Dae and the ruling party is intensifying over how to deal with the spreading Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
The Saenuri Party criticized the presidential office Thursday for rejecting its proposal to meet with the party the previous day to discuss the epidemic.
“With MERS emerging as a national problem, the government and the ruling party should jointly go all-out to tackle the disease. As part of the effort, the Saenuri Party called for a meeting, but Cheong Wa Dae rejected it,” Rep. Choung Byoung-gug said in a radio interview.
“It does not make sense at all.”
Choung became the latest to join his party members, including its leading officials who condemned the presidential office.
On Wednesday, Chairman Kim Moo-sung said it was not a good decision to skip a meeting due to differences of opinion, while floor leader Yoo Seong-min attacked the office for being “childish.”
Other veteran party members, including fifth-term lawmaker Lee Jae-oh, joined in slamming Cheong Wa Dae.
He said the presidential office is causing a conflict within the party without seeking ways to handle the rapidly expanding epidemic.
However, Cheong Wa Dae refrained from commenting on the growing denunciations.
The two sides also clashed over whether the office had expressed disagreement on the controversial revision to the National Assembly Law.
“Presidential chief of staff Lee Byung-kee made it clear to the floor leader that Cheong Wa Dae opposes the law revision,” presidential spokesman Min Kyung-wook told reporters.
However, Yoo denied the claim.
“Cheong Wa Dae indicated problems with the revision, but he did not say anything like that,” the floor leader said.
The conflict reached its peak as the presidential office “virtually” rejected a Saenuri Party call for a meeting to discuss the outbreak and spread of MERS.
President Park Geun-hye convened an unscheduled meeting on the issue without inviting anyone from the governing party.
“A meeting only with the Saenuri Party is not conducive to containing the widespread disease at this point,” said Hyun Jung-taik, the presidential senior secretary for policy coordination.
Hangil Research Director Hong Hyeong-sik said that it will not be easy to patch up the feud, given that there is still much antagonism between the pro-Park group and non-mainstream one, represented by Rep. Suh Chung-won and Chairman Kim, respectively. Suh is a seventh-term lawmaker.
“There has been the possibility for such a feud to pop up half the time, and this time the trigger factor was bigger,” he said.
After the President expressed her strong rejection of the parliamentary law revision Monday, those supportive of Park urged the floor leader to quit, with non-mainstream lawmakers backing Yoo.
Hong added that the best scenario for the two sides to reconcile would be to revisit the revision with the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy.
Bae Jong-chan, the chief director at Research and Research, said that such conflicts will take place frequently in the future.
“In the short term, they will make up in order to show their cooperation to the people in dealing with the spread of MERS, but ahead of the general elections, Suh and Kim may clash over the candidate nomination,” Bae said.
“In addition, the two factions may raise their respective voices in this year’s parliamentary audit of state agencies.”
Amid the intensifying strife, public anger toward the two sides is on the upswing, but analysts said that the Saenuri Party is in the hotter seat.
Last Friday, the rival parties agreed to revise the law; while approving a bill to reform the debt-laden civil servants’ pension system.
“People think that the revision to the National Assembly Law has nothing to do with pension reform,” Bae said.
According to Realmeter, a local pollster, on Tuesday, 43.6 percent of 500 respondents agreed with the President using a presidential veto on the revision, compared with 28.3 percent opposed to such a veto.