President Park should change to survive plunging support

President Park should change to survive plunging support. April. 23, 2016 07:22. by 이진녕 jinnyong@donga.com.

According to the latest poll results announced Friday by Gallup Korea, President Park Geun-hye's job approval rating sank to 29 percent, down by more than 10 percentage points from the previous week. The latest rating was her lowest and the same as the figures at the time of the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome outbreak. Her Saenuri Party's approval rating also plummeted to 30 percent, lowest since the launch of the current administration. The approval ratings mirror the public sentiment expressed in last week's parliamentary elections, in which the ruling party suffered a crushing defeat. In a serious sign, negative assessment of the Park administration reached 58 percent, twice as high as positive views. Main reasons for the negative assessment were her lack of communication, her economic policies, her self-righteousness and dogmatic attitude.

Having lost majority seats in the National Assembly, the loss of public support would leave President Park with nothing to rely on. When a president has low approval ratings, even the ruling party tends to distance itself with the president and everyone begins to blame the leader. It is only a matter of time before the president loses momentum for leading state agendas and becomes a "lame duck." At a time when the economy and national security is in jeopardy, such a situation could bring about a national crisis.

The Saenuri Party's advisory panel consisting of political seniors was right when it urged the president in one voice to declare an end to the faction loyal to her. Former National Assembly Speaker Kim Soo-han said that "all the responsibilities stop at Cheong Wa Dae (the presidential office)" and that new changes must start from the president. It is the senior advisors' view that the factional feud within the ruling party was the cause of state mismanagement and the election defeat and that President Park is at the center of the factional conflict. In order to sail through the rough seas, the president should declare the disbandment of her faction and carry out a bold reshuffle of her staff and administration to change the way she thinks and behaves.

Since the country's democratization in the late 1980s, successive presidents, except former President Lee Myung-bak, left their parties near the end of their terms in office. They had different reasons but their departures gave the ruling party independence and allowed them to run state affairs in a bipartisan manner. Compared to such precedents, the proposed declaration of ending factionalism is the least she can do. Cheong Wa Dae should start by stopping intervening in the Saenuri Party's election of new leadership.

It is important that from now on, the president understands opposition parties' positions and seek their cooperation from the initial stages of policy making. In that respect, it was an obsolete practice for her to make it mandatory for local education offices to use some of state subsidies for childcare or after-school programs without listening to opposition parties' opinions. President Park should realize the reality in which none of her policy would be viable without the help from opposition parties.