Future of ruling party hangs on interim leader nominee's level of autonomy

Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon, center, leaves the ministry in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, Thursday, after resigning from the post upon accepting the ruling People Power Party's request to assume the role as its interim leader ahead of the April general elections. Yonhap

The ruling People Power Party (PPP) will soon embrace its interim leader, former Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon, who is already leading polls as the most preferred conservative presidential candidate. Furthermore, his relationship with President Yoon Suk Yeol is anticipated to decide not only the ruling party’s campaign in the upcoming general elections but also Yoon's political career.

According to officials at the PPP, it will hold phone voting via its regional chapter leaders on Dec. 26 to decide whether to approve Han as the head of the party’s emergency committee. Given the time required for voting and subsequent processes, the new interim leader is anticipated to begin operations no earlier than Dec. 29.

After accepting his nomination last week and resigning from the justice minister post, Han has been considering possible candidates to help form his emergency committee, which will be comprised of up to 15 members.

The committee will be operating as the control tower for the PPP’s campaigns so that the party can salvage itself from its declining popularity ahead of the general elections slated for April, following a crushing defeat in a Seoul district mayoral by-election in October.

Since the general elections are widely viewed as a referendum on the incumbent president, and Han is being described as a protégé of Yoon, politicians are saying the fates of the ruling party, Yoon and Han are now synchronized, meaning that if the party’s general elections end in defeat, it will render Yoon a lame duck and leave Han’s political career in limbo.

Against this backdrop, gaining attention is how Han aims set his and the party’s relations with Yoon, because the PPP has been criticized for becoming a mouthpiece of the president in recent months, and Han’s leadership is triggering concerns that the party may become even more submissive to the administration.

Former president and then-ruling Saenuri Party interim chief Park Geun-hye, left, talks to then-party secretary general Kwon Young-se during a campaign launching ceremony at the National Assembly on Yeouido, March 21, 2012. Korea Times photo by Koh Young-kwon

Due to this, party officials are hoping that Han will maintain Yoon’s trust but still be able to criticize the administration’s wrongdoings so that the relationship between the party and the government can be healthier.

Pundits cited the relationship between former conservative President Park Geun-hye and her predecessor Lee Myung-bak in 2011 as a reference for Han’s interim leadership.

In December 2011, Park became the interim leader of the then-ruling Hannara Party four months before the general elections, and changed the party’s name to the Saenuri Party, which later became the PPP. In doing so, she stood up against then-President Lee of the party, and embraced reformists. After clinching victories in the general elections, she later became the president.

However, there are skeptical views that the situation of Han and Park are different.

“Park was able to succeed as then-ruling party interim chief, because she had no strings tied to then-President Lee (Myung-bak) and had no limits in her actions,” former PPP interim chief Kim Chong-in said in an interview with broadcaster CBS, Dec. 20. “And in my view, it is impossible for now … The PPP’s innovation committee recently failed to have outcomes because it had (former) PPP Chairman Kim Gi-hyeon and President Yoon above it.”

The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) are also criticizing Han’s relationship to Yoon, saying that it forms a basis for the ruling party to become even more submissive to the president.

“If Han’s interim leadership plays a role of avatar of the Yoon administration, despite the people’s order that the PPP should end its submissive relations to Yoon, it will be the prelude of the administration’s failure,” DPK senior spokesperson Rep. Kwon Chil-seung said, Sunday.