[EDITORIALS]Political Parties on Collision Course

Home > Opinion > Editorials

print dictionary print

[EDITORIALS]Political Parties on Collision Course

Amidst of the continuing aftershock of the junior lawmakers' demand calling for reform within the party, the ruling Millennium Democratic Party suffers from the internal strife. The 12 junior lawmakers, who recently led the political upheaval by announcing statements, repeatedly demanded personnel changes in the ruling circle. Yet, the ruling party leadership and the Donggyo-dong faction, the loyal devotees of President Kim Dae-jung since his opposition period, criticized the junior lawmakers for challenging the ruling power. Considering the violent attitudes of both parties, a possible head-on collision may occur in the political arena. It is lamentable that the internal conflict within the ruling party seemed to become degraded from the agony to achieve political improvement to mere factional discords.

The junior lawmakers of the ruling party agreed to hold a meeting on regular basis, suggesting that they intend to exert pressure on President Kim to reflect their demands on the reform measures to be announced next Wednesday. We can interpret that the junior lawmakers assumed such resolute attitude because President Kim failed to present clear resolutions at the meeting he had with the members of MDP Supreme Council. Mr. Kim passively responded to the demands of personnel changes arguing that "Personnel management is the presidential privilege." Although he promised to reshape the policymaking system by moving the weight from the Blue House to the ruling party, the proposal certainly failed to meet the expectation of the people criticizing the unsuccessful national governance. The junior lawmakers seemed to fear that their reform movement would have ended up a temporary remedy.

The Donggyo-dong faction, the largest in the party, reportedly felt the most disturbed by the junior lawmakers' actions. They reportedly discussed measures like sit-in at the latters' offices and throwing eggs to them to have their revenge, hinting that the situation has gotten uglier. They must have harbored ill feeling toward the junior lawmakers because their demands were targeted at the core members of the Donggyo-dong faction. However, they should have considered why such demands calling for reform were focused on them. Taking the bitter advice as an attack against their group is a remainder of the factionalism that they should abandon.
Log in to Twitter or Facebook account to connect
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
help-image Social comment?
s
lock icon

To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.

Standards Board Policy (0/250자)