Assembly speaker, rival parties must join forces to overcome ‘Korean crisis’

A growing number of university students and professors are issuing political statements against the government, demanding President Park Geun-hye to step down. A massive protest rally is also scheduled over the weekend. As Choi Soon-sil, the most powerful of the president’s secretive aides, has been found to have extensively manipulated state affairs, Park saw her approval rating plunge from 25 percent last week to 17 percent in a Gallup poll. After the president made an insincere apology to the public on Tuesday, her approval rating plummeted to as low as 14 percent. Park is in a complete limbo and has nowhere to turn for help, since her approval rating even among the conservative group, her traditional supporters, also fell to 23 percent.

If the president intends to try to lead state administration by making personnel reshuffles of the presidential office and the Cabinet and delegating a significant portion of her powers to the prime minister, without accepting the formation of an all-nation non-party cabinet demanded by the opposition parties, chances are high that her bid will prove to be a doomed move taken after deeply thinking a long time. A presidential office source said on Friday that the president is deeply agonizing from diverse perspectives to lead state administration without being swayed (by the fiasco), but with public distrust in President Park Geun-hye extremely deep, it is impossible for her to continue spearheading state administration without being swayed. If she fails to present measures that can respond to and successfully appease the angry public, it will be only repetition of her public apology that further aggravates negative public sentiment.

The main opposition Minjoo Party on Friday declared halt of negotiations over independent council probe into the "Choi Soon-sil scandal" with the ruling Saenuri Party. The ruling and opposition parties already disclosed differences over whether the independent council probe will be conducted through standing independent council probe available under law or special independent council probe that requires new legislation, but this move by the opposition would have been rather politically motivated to pressure President Park and the ruling party in connection with the Choi fiasco.

An independent council probe is a measure meant to address public suspicions and thus help regain public trust by finding the truth over Choi’s suspected manipulation of state affairs, separately from measures that President Park will put forward in a bid to recover public trust such as personnel reshuffles. The prosecution originally allocated the Choi case to the youngest prosecutor at Criminal Case Department 8 in charge of real estate cases, rather than the Special Case Department at the Seoul Central District Public Prosecutors’ Office, only to expand the probe and establish a special investigation headquarters belatedly now in the face of strong public criticism, but public trust in the prosecution is already at the lowest point.

The current fiasco derives from suspicions surrounding the president and her aides and confidants. If independent council probe is conducted through a standing independent council team, whose chief is appointed by President Park, the public will never trust the results of the investigation. The most desirable measure at this point is for the ruling party to cooperate with the opposition parties in adopting a special independent council probe, so that the council team’s chief can be recommended by the opposition. During the Lee Myung-bak administration, there was already a precedent in which an independent council probe spearheaded by the opposition was conducted to investigate Lee’s private residence construction case. It is not a time for the opposition to halt negotiations over the independent council by linking this with other issues.

Cho In-geun, Park’s speech and documenting secretary who was in charge of making first drafts for the president, voluntarily called a press conference on Friday, and denied previous news reports suggesting that after he had drafted speeches, the speeches returned to him with strange modifications (through the review process), saying that “I never made such remarks. I never knew who Choi Soon-sil was.” Cho also said, “Since there were no significant changes to the speeches, I did not have any suspicion that anyone might have revised the speeches.” It is doubtful whether those embroiled in the scandal are attempting to harmonize their statements ahead of probe, just as Choi Soon-sil did in an interview with a Korean daily on Thursday. Considering possible destruction of evidences, the sooner an independent council probe starts, the better it will be.

It is an appropriate move that National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-gyun called on Friday a meeting of floor leaders of the three ruling and opposition parties on Monday. The suggested reason for the meeting is to deliberate and approve next year’s state budget within legal deadline (December 2), but the meeting will address all different issues surrounding the current situation facing Korea, including the adoption of an independent council in connection with the Choi Soon-sil scandal, formation of an all-nation non-party cabinet, and constitutional amendment. The National Assembly is one of the pillars tasked with leading state administration along with the government. The opposition cannot afford to propose conditions for its cooperation in state administration, or only wait until the president takes any measure, just like the ruling party does. The National Assembly speaker and chairmen of the ruling and opposition parties must join forces to ensure that the parliament can lead the effort to come up with measures to resolve the crisis and prevent the Republic of Korea from sinking further.

이진녕 jinnyong@donga.com