Grand National Party’s Internal Dispute Reaching Climax


By Park Song-wu
Staff Reporter

Grand National Party (GNP) chairman Choe Byung-yul on Wednesday faced insurmountable pressure to step down in yet another twist to the party’s ongoing internal dispute.

Nearly 50 out of 149 affiliated lawmakers called on Choe to resign, citing a lack of vitality in his leadership of the party ahead of the crucial general elections scheduled for April. Their number will likely only grow.

The lawmakers move was made despite Choe’s announcement that he will not run for reelection. Just one day earlier, he blamed Lee Hoi-chang for the crisis facing the party in connection with the campaign fundraising scandal. Lee was the party’s candidate in the 2002 presidential election and Choe had hoped to pin all the responsibility on him so the party could move forward.

Choe was looking for time to maneuver but he may not get it.

``Mr Choe said that he needed some time to think it over. He told us that he had nothing to say at this time,’’ GNP lawmaker Maeng Hyung-kyu said as he came out of a meeting with Choe.

About 20 lawmakers, including Reps. Lee Jae-oh, Park Jin and Nam Kyung-pil, also called for an early party convention to elect new party leaders and the creation of an ad-hoc body to deal with urgent party affairs.

After a meeting in Yoido, they said the new leadership would be elected within 20 days to concentrate on the upcoming general elections.

Twenty five other lawmakers, including Yang Jung-kyu and Chung Chang-wha, had a similar meeting at the same time and demanded Choe step down to save the harassed party.

Even if Choe somehow manages to survive this current political crisis, his leadership has probably received a fatal blow because most of the ones who are revolting against him backed him last June when he was elected party chairman.

The GNP screening committee, in the meantime, decided not to offer the party’s floor leader Hong Sa-duk a ticket to run in the Kangnam B district, his former constituency. The five-term lawmaker was elected last time as a proportional representative.

``We reached an agreement to make him run in a district where the party will likely face a hard battle to win,’’ a committee member said.

The decision came in the face of demands from the majority party’s young lawmakers for the leadership to reshape the party’s apparatus. It also follows an onslaught of bad news, including the prosecution’s revelation that the GNP’s 2002 presidential campaign headquarters received an additional 1.7 billion won (approx. $1.5 million) from Samsung Group, the nation’s top conglomerate.

The GNP’s conflict, often called a ``generational power struggle,’’ deteriorated after the party railroaded a bill last week to release former chairman Suh Chung-won, who had been detained on charges of illegal fund raising, darkening the party’s outlook in the upcoming elections.

The main opposition party currently holds 149 seats in the 273-lawmaker Assembly.

The prosecution has been investigating the illegal fundraising scandal, involving both Lee Hoi-chang, Choe’s predecessor, and President Roh Moo-hyun, since late last year. So far, the GNP has been found to have collected and used more than 75 billion won ($65 million), while the Roh camp obtained about 9 billion won.


im@koreatimes.co.kr