Moon Jae-in should ruminate on Kim Moo-sung’s advice

The ruling Saenuri Party is enjoying an era of peace nowadays. The party includes the pro-Park Geun-hye faction, the non-Park Geun-hye faction and the pro-Lee Myung-bak faction and they hold meetings on their own, but no noise of conflict is heard externally. When the pro-Park Geun-hye faction sought to promote Ban Ki-moon as potential candidate for the next presidency, when former President Lee Myung-bak prematurely published his memoir, when investigation was conducted to probe corruptions in overseas resource development projects of the past, and when the presidential office expressed objection to linking conditions in the civil servants pension with those of the national pension, some critics claimed that they represented expressions of conflict between factions that had been latent, but such claims were short-lived.

Once in the past, the Saenuri Party would also experience conflict between different factions. Conflict between the pro-Lee and pro-Park factions, which took separate paths starting from its party convention to select its presidential candidate in 2007, was so intense that it was close a state of war. "Massacre (unconditional disqualification) of would-be candidates in nomination" for the general elections in 2008, and voting down of a revision bill on the plan to construct the Sejong administrative city in 2010 was culmination of offensives and defensives that the pro-Lee and pro-Park factions exchanged each other. As the pro-Park faction effectively monopolized nomination of candidates in the general elections in 2012, rumors suggested that the party was feared to split. If the pro-Lee and pro-Park factions split at that time, it is doubtful whether the Saenuri Party could have been able to win in the general elections and the presidential election.

The person who played the most important role in saving Saenuri from the crisis, and elevating the party to the current stature is its current leader, Kim Moo-sung. He changed from the leader of the pro-Park faction into a member of non-Park faction but chose not to run in the general elections, rather than running as independent candidate when he failed to win nomination as a candidate for the 2012 general elections. In the same year, he made a comeback as the head of the party’s election preparation team, which spearheaded its preparation for the presidential election that year, contributing to Park’s election victory. Then, he chose to become an ordinary member again, after only leaving a sheet of letter behind. As the party chairman in July 2014 after overcoming many challenges, Kim was able to win the election by pledging “not to exercise the right to nominate party candidates for general elections.”

Kim advised Moon Jae-in, chairman of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, which is experiencing severe internal conflict, by saying, “Everything will be solved if you give up the right to nominate candidates for the general elections.” It remains to be seen whether Kim will actually not exercise the right to nominate his party’s candidates for next year’s general elections, but considering that he has publicly stated already, he seems to really mean what he have said. In fact, Moon has never sacrificed himself to benefit his party, and even still gives the impression of being the leader of the pro-Roh Moo-hyun faction within the party. Moon needs to ruminate on Kim’s valuable advice that contains the essence of the latter’s experience in politics that spans decades.