Home > National > Politics

Park accepts compromise on GNP ethics rule

Published: 04 Feb. 2008, 22:43

Park Geun-hye sits in the National Assembly yesterday. [YONHAP]

Conservative leader Park Geun-hye, the former chairwoman of the Grand National Party, yesterday formally accepted a compromise on an ethics requirement for the party’s official candidates for the April legislative elections, supposedly ending the latest rupture between her faction of the GNP and supporters of Lee Myung-bak.
The deal allows candidates with a past corruption conviction who were fined but not imprisoned to seek official nomination by the Grand National Party.
The Park and Lee factions fought recently over how to interpret a party ethics regulation in order to secure as many spots as possible for their respective allies. As the rupture grew, the Supreme Council, the GNP’s decision-making body, came up with a compromise interpretation of the ethics rule on Saturday. The council said those convicted of corruption and given a prison term are still barred from a party slot.
“For the betterment of the party and politics, I have decided to let the party chairman handle the matter. I believe he will be fair,” Park said yesterday. She also said she will follow Chairman Kang Jae-sup’s decision on the fate of GNP Secretary General Lee Bang-ho, a key aide to the president-elect whom her supporters have demanded step down from the leadership post.
In the infighting over the nomination process, Lee Bang-ho came under attack from the Park faction for urging a strict interpretation of the ethics policy, which would have disqualified several Park backers. In response, her supporters devised an ethics standard that would have seen many of President-elect Lee’s allies disqualified for election law violations.

Lee Bang-ho, left, secretary general of the Grand National Party, talks to Kang Jae-sup, the party’s chairman, at the Supreme Council meeting yesterday after Lee apologized for causing a rift over nomination ethics rules. [NEWSIS]

Chairman Kang, who is identified with Park, at one point called Lee Bang-ho a “backstabber.” Over the weekend Lee apologized to Kang, but Park’s loyalists are still angry.
Park canceled a planned meeting with her supporters yesterday afternoon in order to calm the charged atmosphere.
With Park accepting the compromise, the GNP power struggle took a rest for now.
An aide to President-elect Lee said he appreciated Park’s cooperation. “It appears that Park used her political power to reconcile the party. She understood that the party should not be shaken any further over the nominations.”

By Ser Myo-ja Staff Reporter/ Lee Ka-young JoongAng Ilbo [[email protected]]