Doubts remain over 'big tent' party's ability to work together

From right, Reform Party Rep. Yang Hyang-ja, Reform Party Chairman Lee Jun-seok, Saemirae Party Chairman Lee Nak-yon, New Party Chairman Keum Tae-seop and Principle and Common Sense Rep. Cho Eung-cheon greet people at Yongsan Station in Seoul, Friday. Later in the day, they announced that they will merge into a single political party named the Reform Party. Yonhap

Minor political parties that were recently formed as several politicians broke away from Korea’s main conservative and liberal parties, decided to merge so as to form a big-tent party. However, doubts remain over their ability to work together and find a common identity as a single political entity.

Their supporters are still sharply divided along ideological lines, complaining that the merger was announced only for the sake of the April 10 general elections, without setting a common agenda as a single party.

On Friday, the four parties — the Reform Party headed by former ruling People Power Party (PPP) Chairman Lee Jun-seok, the Saemirae Party headed by former main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) Chairman Lee Nak-yon, the New Party headed by former lawmaker Keum Tae-seop, and the Principle and Common Sense party headed by independent Rep. Cho Eung-cheon — announced that they agreed to merge into a single party under the name of the Reform Party.

Reform Party co-Chairmen Lee Nak-yon, left, and Lee Jun-seok shake hands during their meeting at a restaurant in Jongno District, Seoul, Sunday. Yonhap

During its first leadership meeting on Sunday, the Reform Party decided to have the former chairmen of the PPP and the DPK as co-chairmen and named a number of party officials on Monday, including their Supreme Council members, each recommended by their respective parties. The first Supreme Council meeting will be held on Tuesday.

“I appreciate everyone for reaching this agreement despite the short period of negotiations,” Lee Nak-yon said after Sunday’s meeting. “We will do our best to meet the expectations on us. We will launch the party’s leadership as soon as possible to carry out things that we need to address.”

The former liberal party head wrote on Facebook that he accepted using the Reform Party as the merged party name in order to keep the momentum of political reform. “I beg our party members and supporters to understand and accept this.”

During a radio interview with broadcaster MBC, Monday, Lee Jun-seok said, “We decided to use the Reform Party as the merged party’s name because my group agreed on the integration with the existing Reform Party being at the center.”

Their comments came because supporters of the existing Reform Party and Saemirae Party are expressing their complaints about the abrupt merger. Of them, the Reform Party, whose supporters are mostly conservatives, is seeing its members leaving the party, criticizing the merged party’s imbalance between the conservatives and the liberals, because except for the Reform Party, all the other three political groups are comprised of former DPK or other liberal party members.

On the website of the Reform Party, Monday, members left posts regarding their disappointment with the merger, asking for ways to leave the party.

“The so-called big-tent party is now filled with former members of the DPK, and it is natural to have concerns that the voice of reformatist conservatives may be overshadowed,” a party member wrote. “With an imbalance of power within the leadership, how can an equal voice be ensured?”

Lee Ki-in, a spokesperson of the Reform Party, also wrote on the website, “I assume that the supporters are outraged because the process and the cause of the merger were not transparent, and we are also painfully looking back to the decision as to whether we have neglected what’s important for the sake of the elections.”

Lee Jun-seok said in the radio interview that he is also aware of the criticisms over the imbalance between the conservatives and the liberals, but “the Supreme Council is not experiencing disagreement because of their former party affiliations, and I can assure that the [merged] Reform Party has set up a structure for reasonable decision making.”

The agreement on the merger between the Reform Party, the Saemirae Party, the New Party and the Principle and Common Sense Party was revealed during a press conference on the merger at the National Assembly, Seoul, Friday. Yonhap

With its ability to reach ideological consensus facing doubts, the recent merger of the Reform Party is now working on its strategy for the elections.

Watchers are saying that chances are high for the party to recommend conservative members, such as Lee Jun-seok, as candidates for conservative strongholds of Daegu and Busan, and liberal figures, such as Lee Nak-yon, for Gwangju and Jeolla provinces.

For Seoul and the surrounding province of Gyeonggi, the party will likely recommend Keum, who has already announced his bid to run in Seoul’s Jongno District, Rep. Yang Hyang-ja, who is seeking to run in Yongin in Gyeonggi Province and other politicians who have relatively moderate partisan orientations.