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| Kim Chong-in, the interim leader of the main opposition People Power Party, participates in a party meeting at the National Assembly in Seoul, Monday. / Yonhap |
By Kang Seung-woo
Main opposition People Power Party (PPP) interim leader Kim Chong-in is facing a heavy backlash from party members over his plan to issue a public apology for the crimes of jailed former Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye.
The Supreme Court confirmed Lee's 17-year prison sentence for embezzlement and bribery in October and he was forced to return to prison, while Park has been locked up since March 2017 after she was convicted of corruption. Both of them belonged to predecessors (in name) of the PPP.
On Sunday, Kim, who agreed to lead the party following its landslide defeat in April's general election, said the time has come for the party to issue an apology for the criminal acts of the former presidents.
"The public apology was something that I openly decided to do when I joined the party, but I could not do it until now because I had to take many things into consideration," he told reporters after a party event.
Previously, Kim intended to apologize for the actions of the former presidents after a Supreme Court ruling on Park, but due to its postponement, the interim leader has been gauging when to issue the apology. Now he is considering doing so on Dec. 9 which was the day the motion to impeach Park was passed by the National Assembly four years ago.
Last month, PPP floor leader Rep. Joo Ho-young also acknowledged the need for the party to publicly apologize, adding that the plan needed to be coordinated internally.
However, some lawmakers are strongly criticizing the plan.
"Kim is pushing ahead with issuing an apology despite strong opposition from a large number of party members. It is an apparent abuse of authority," Rep. Chang Je-won of the PPP wrote on Facebook, adding that the PPP was not Kim's own private party and he was just the ad-hoc leader.
"He never convened a general meeting for discussion of the issue, which means it failed to secure procedural legitimacy. The party has to focus on stopping the ruling party's unilateral operation of the Assembly but he is now causing disruptions," the third-term lawmaker added.
Rep. Bae Hyun-jin of the PPP also denounced Kim's plan as "cognitive dissonance."
She noted that Kim headed the current ruling Democratic Party of Korea's (DPK) emergency committee in 2016 at the request of Moon, who was the DPK chairman at the time, and helped the then-opposition party win the general election that year with 123 seats. The DPK's win paved the way for Moon to win the presidential election the following year.
"If he wants to issue an apology, Kim should first apologize for contributing to the launch of the Moon Jae-in administration that is now overturning the constitutional history of the country and making the people's lives more difficult, rather than apologizing on behalf of the two former presidents who are likely to spend the rest of their lives behind bars," said Bae, who is also a spokeswoman of the party.
Rep. Suh Byung-soo, another fellow PPP lawmaker who was close to Park, said on Facebook, "It is not the right time to apologize."
"The conservative side is struggling not because we haven't apologized for Park's impeachment," the fifth-term lawmaker said.
"It would be more appropriate to wait until a final verdict is issued on her."
The interim leader, a veteran economist and politician, flatly rejected the growing criticism of his planned apology.
"I am aware of the backlash within the party, but I do not much care about it," Kim told reporters after a party meeting, Monday.
