By Do Je-hae
Political parties are mired in an internal feud over how to select candidates for the general elections in 2016.
Within the ruling Saenuri Party, rival factions are in a dispute over Chairman Rep. Kim Moo-sung’s proposal to introduce a U.S.-style open primary system.
Kim has been pushing for the proposal in a bid to prevent problems in the current top-down candidate selection procedures. Critics say the current system makes it easy for senior party officials to intervene in the course of selecting candidates.
Despite questions from rival factions, Kim said Thursday that he is adamant about applying the open primary system ahead of the next general elections. He made it clear that some opposing views will not deter him from seeing it through.
“I will risk my political career for the implementation of the open primary system,” Kim said during a Supreme Council meeting Thursday. “The people are behind the system.”
The Saenuri Party adopted the system as a party platform pledge during a general meeting in April. But factions are clashing over the timing and efficacy of the system, particularly between the faction tied to President Park Geun-hye and the rest.
Fearing that it will lose its power in the candidate selection process, some members of the pro-Park faction voiced their opposition to the system. “It will not be easy to transfer this proposal into reality,” Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun, a key member of the pro-Park faction, told reporters Wednesday.
Rep. Choung Byoung-gug told the party's critics of the proposal not to place their own interests ahead of political reform. “Through the open primary system, the people have the right to nominate candidates. This will ease factional politics, and make it possible for politicians to focus on engaging in politics for the people,” Chung said during a party meeting Wednesday.
Kim publicly suggested the open primary system when he marked his first year in office in July. He has called on the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) to join in pushing for the system. But the NPAD has not taken to the proposal. NPAD Chairman Rep. Moon Jae-in rejected Kim's call for joining forces to adopt the system ahead of the elections.
“To put this into practice and make it into law, we need a consensus among the ruling and the opposition parties,” Kim said. “We will work toward a consensus.”
A recent poll showed that 65.4 percent of the respondents were positive about the open primary system, while 20.7 percent said that it was unnecessary.
The NPAD is also in internal conflict over its candidate nomination system.
At the center of contention is a proposal to weed out underperforming lawmakers and deny them nomination in the next elections.
Kim Sang-gon, the chief of the NPAD’s reform panel, announced a set of measures Wednesday to revise the candidate nomination system, the highlight of which is to exclude the bottom 20 percent of underperformers from candidate selection.
Under the plan, the lawmakers will be judged on several criteria, such as legislative activity and performance evaluation of campaign pledges.
The bottom 20 percent will be excluded from gaining nomination for the next elections. A group of outside experts will review the lawmakers’ performances to better ensure fairness in the evaluation process.
“The evaluation system is an undeniable call from the people,” Kim told reporters Wednesday.
But some lawmakers are picking at the plan. “In principle, I agree that such a system is necessary,” Rep. Park Jie-won said on Twitter. “But the evaluation committee should include not only outside experts, but also people from within the party.”