No future if the PPP is detached from reality
Published: 16 Dec. 2024, 20:02
Updated: 17 Dec. 2024, 12:59
People Power Party (PPP) leader Han Dong-hoon resigned on Monday 146 days after taking the helm of the conservative party at the July 23 national convention to elect its new head. Running in the election five months ago, Han — a former justice minister in the Yoon Suk Yeol administration — pledged to reinvent the conservative party for a brighter future. Following the passage of the second motion to impeach President Yoon on Saturday, Han expressed the will to maintain his seat. But after all of the five elected members of the Supreme Council stepped down, he had to resign.
Following his resignation, the PPP will be led by the emergency steering committee for the sixth time since the launch of the Yoon administration in May 2022. During that period, three leaders dishonorably left the party. It is extremely abnormal that the leadership of the governing party — an axis of government — could collapse so easily.
In a speech before his resignation, Han said, “If the governing party is perceived as a group of politicians supporting the unlawful declaration of martial law, it betrays the spirit of a great nation, people and conservatism, which achieved industrialization and democratization simultaneously.” His remarks were a direct attack on pro-Yoon lawmakers who had voted down the impeachment motion last Saturday.
The lead-up to Han’s resignation exposed the deep-rooted factional conflicts regarding impeaching the president. After the impeachment motion passed by four more votes than the required 200 in the 300-member legislature, pro-Yoon lawmakers denounced Han for encouraging support for impeachment rather than following the party’s stance against it. Other PPP members went so far as to stigmatize Han and his followers as “traitors and collaborators” with the opposition Democratic Party (DP), demanding they leave the PPP as soon as possible.
In a farcical turn, a PPP lawmaker close to President Yoon said, “Even if you oppose the impeachment this time, you will be forgotten just a year later. So you have no problem getting elected lawmaker again.” His comment shows that lawmakers care about their own interests, not the future of the country or the people. We seriously wonder how such a party can take pride in representing the values of conservatism.
The leaders of the PPP under Han’s reign or any other PPP lawmakers cannot shun responsibility for impeaching the president. If they had changed the vertical relationship between the presidential office and the PPP into horizontal one and could put the brakes on the president’s unilateral governance, they could have prevented a serious crisis like this. Han took the lead in lifting martial law, but he himself invited a leadership crisis, as clearly seen in his repeated conflicts with the president and his provocative posts on the party’s homepage.
Amid such a self-triggered conflict, the DP led the PPP by 16 percent in a recent Gallup Korea poll. That’s the biggest gap between the two parties since the launch of the conservative administration 31 months ago. As many as 7,000 PPP members have already left the party since the declaration of martial law on Dec. 3. We hope the PPP keeps in mind that the party will be doomed if it continues dismissing deepening public sentiment against it.
Following his resignation, the PPP will be led by the emergency steering committee for the sixth time since the launch of the Yoon administration in May 2022. During that period, three leaders dishonorably left the party. It is extremely abnormal that the leadership of the governing party — an axis of government — could collapse so easily.
In a speech before his resignation, Han said, “If the governing party is perceived as a group of politicians supporting the unlawful declaration of martial law, it betrays the spirit of a great nation, people and conservatism, which achieved industrialization and democratization simultaneously.” His remarks were a direct attack on pro-Yoon lawmakers who had voted down the impeachment motion last Saturday.
The lead-up to Han’s resignation exposed the deep-rooted factional conflicts regarding impeaching the president. After the impeachment motion passed by four more votes than the required 200 in the 300-member legislature, pro-Yoon lawmakers denounced Han for encouraging support for impeachment rather than following the party’s stance against it. Other PPP members went so far as to stigmatize Han and his followers as “traitors and collaborators” with the opposition Democratic Party (DP), demanding they leave the PPP as soon as possible.
In a farcical turn, a PPP lawmaker close to President Yoon said, “Even if you oppose the impeachment this time, you will be forgotten just a year later. So you have no problem getting elected lawmaker again.” His comment shows that lawmakers care about their own interests, not the future of the country or the people. We seriously wonder how such a party can take pride in representing the values of conservatism.
The leaders of the PPP under Han’s reign or any other PPP lawmakers cannot shun responsibility for impeaching the president. If they had changed the vertical relationship between the presidential office and the PPP into horizontal one and could put the brakes on the president’s unilateral governance, they could have prevented a serious crisis like this. Han took the lead in lifting martial law, but he himself invited a leadership crisis, as clearly seen in his repeated conflicts with the president and his provocative posts on the party’s homepage.
Amid such a self-triggered conflict, the DP led the PPP by 16 percent in a recent Gallup Korea poll. That’s the biggest gap between the two parties since the launch of the conservative administration 31 months ago. As many as 7,000 PPP members have already left the party since the declaration of martial law on Dec. 3. We hope the PPP keeps in mind that the party will be doomed if it continues dismissing deepening public sentiment against it.
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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