The need for and direction of innovation

Democratic Party (DP) floor leader Park Kwang-on on Wednesday cautioned members of the liberal opposition party to refrain from making remarks that could incite conflicts or upset certain generations, while relaying that Kim Eun-kyung, head of the party’s special innovation committee, has apologized for her comments related to senior citizens during a roundtable event with younger people on Sunday. The leadership publicly apologized on behalf of Kim, who expressed “regret” for her comments if they anyone's feelings, though the innovation committee maintained the matter did not require an apology.

To the young audience on Sunday, Kim shared a question from her teenage son, asking why old people were determining their future. She said she agreed with her son because she could not understand why people with only a few years left to live should have an equal vote as young voters. The comment stoked outrage for being offensive to the older generations. The innovation committee argued the comment was made to encourage greater political participation from young people and did not in any way deny the principles of democracy. Making maters worse, her colleague Rep. Yangyi Won-young posted a comment on her Facebook backing the idea of differentiating voting rights for older people. She immediately apologized for “causing a misunderstanding” upon simmering controversy. The party head of a body representing the elderly demanded a public apology from party chief Lee Jae-myung, and the Korea Senior Citizens’ Association issued an angry statement.

Fearing an adverse impact in the run-up to the parliamentary election in April next year, the DP leadership humbled itself to give a substitute apology. The innovation committee’s explanation is understandable. But Kim’s behavior had been ambiguous. She could have stopped the buildup of the controversy if she simply apologized. Unremorseful, Kim, on another public occasion, omitted the presidential title when referring to President Yoon Suk Yeol and said she had felt “shameful” for completing her term as the vice chair of the Financial Supervisory Service under Yoon to generate fiery complaints from the ruling party.

Upon being appointed the innovation chair in June, Kim in an interview floated the suspicion of the prosecution cooking up the scandal about cash envelopes being handed out to party members ahead of the 2021 national convention to elect a new party leader. She likened a rookie lawmaker to a student whose academic standards were downgraded by remote and disrupted schooling during Covid-19, and criticized former party head Lee Nak-yon for his political activities aimed to revive his faction within the party.
The innovation committee’s first reform idea of yielding lawmakers’ immunity from arrest has derailed, and the alternative proposal of an anonymous vote on the idea also has faced backlash as a motion to arrest Lee would likely be refiled at the National Assembly. The committee has been stirring the house with critical views on the party, while party members question the identity and direction of the committee.
The party can never get around to innovation under such mess. The innovation committee is a brainchild of Lee. A lack of neutrality from its birth and the string of controversies the committee has been making is only pushing the party farther away from innovation. The DP must first ruminate on the need for and direction of innovation.