Leaders Meet To Shore Up Party's Unity

Senior ruling party lawmakers held an emergency meeting Tuesday to stop calls from within to overhaul the party leadership.

The criticisms began after last Friday's abortive attempt to impeach the nation's top two prosecutors.

Chairman Suh Young-hoon hurriedly called the meeting of the Supreme Council of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party to extinguish the party's internal strife.

The members came out of the meeting asking their fellow lawmakers to come together and present a united front to the opposition Grand National Party.

Representative Rhee In-je said that "the times call for us to work toward normalizing the parliament."

Another council member, Kwon Roh-kap, commented that the "appropriate time to change party leadership is in conjunction with the change of Cabinet members planned for early next year."

The admonitions failed to hold back the criticisms from within the party.

Representative Chang Sung-min repeated his call for a change in a speech at the Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University.

"The opposition party leadership seems firmly locked behind President Lee Hoi-chang, but it is ambiguous who really controls the ruling party," he said.

by Park Sung-hee