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Will political parties continue to leave state affairs paralyzed?

Will political parties continue to leave state affairs paralyzed?

Posted December. 02, 2016 07:14,   

Updated December. 02, 2016 07:23

한국어

The ruling Saenuri Party on Thursday decided to negotiate with opposition parties its plan to seek to have President Park step down before the end of April and hold the presidential election in June instead of late 2017. If Saenuri’s so-called “non-Park faction” accepts Park’s resignation in April, the party will not likely participate in impeaching the president. Against the backdrop, leaders of the three opposition parties failed to reach an agreement on voting on President Park’s impeachment on Friday, as the People’s Party insisted on voting on a later date. The party argued that voting without the support from the non-Park faction could let the president get away with her involvement in the latest corruption and influence-peddling scandal. As proposing an impeachment motion requires a majority vote (more than 150) from registered lawmakers, the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea alone cannot forward the motion to the National Assembly. Despite continued paralysis in state administration since the scandal broke out in late October, the National Assembly has been unable to reach an agreement on anything.

No criticism would be too harsh for the Korean political circles that have shown incompetence for over a month. Although they demanded that President Park take her hands off domestic affairs and put a National Assembly-recommended prime minister in charge of the Cabinet, they failed to agree on recommending a prime minister when the president accepted the demand. The main opposition party, which was leading the political situation, clung to having the president resign immediately, judging that the earlier a presidential election will take place, the more favorable the situation would be for Moon Jae-in, the party’s former chief and the favorite presidential contender. Once the president leaves it up to the National Assembly to decide on a timetable for her resignation, the party refused to negotiation.

The Saenuri Party’s non-Park faction, which holds the key to impeaching the president, was shaken up by Park’s proposal of an early resignation coordinated with the pro-Park faction. The Park loyalists, whose political fate would be doomed in the event of the president’s impeachment, are holding on to Park’s resignation in April as if their last hope of survival. The People’s Party, the third-largest party in the National Assembly, has failed to play a balancing role between the two major parties. As all the political forces who failed to prevent President Park and her confidante privatize power are clinging to political tactics, any proposal made by any of them are suspected to be politically calculated.

If the political circles think about the public’s suffering that could be as harsh as that of the 1997 financial crisis, it is imperative for them to get the situation right. Now that Saenuri has decided on President Park’s resignation in April and a June presidential election, the opposition parties should come to the negotiating table with the ruling party. They should reach an agreement before December 9, the deadline they set for the presidential impeachment, on a timetable and procedure for Park’s resignation and a prime minister who would lead the interim government.

If they fail to reach an agreement, they should pursue a presidential impeachment in accordance with the process set by the Constitution. The political parties should not drag on the resignation by President Park who has lost her Constitutional legitimacy. President Park, who had been negative about shortening her term in office, has accepted early resignation because the parties pressured her with impeachment. The parties need to engage in both negotiations for Park’s early resignation and impeachment in order to ensure early departure by Park, who has reneged on her promises several times, to prevent the pro-Park faction from making a political comeback, and to leave a historic lesson.



phark@donga.com