hankyoreh

The scandal over the United Progressive Party’s (UPP) selection of proportional representatives is reaching disaster levels, with violence that erupting at a meeting of the party’s central committee a few days ago. There had been warnings of this from in and around the party, but this tawdry spectacle unfolded online with the entire population watching. The train wreck that has become progressive politics is painful to watch.
On May 12, the UPP’s central committee meeting at the KINTEX convention center in the Ilsan neighborhood of Goyang, Gyeonggi saw an unprecedented physical assault on the party leadership. Early in the meeting, the party’s establishment members questioned whether quorum had been met, and the meeting was delayed as the standing of central committee members from the People‘s Participation Party was called into question. After no fewer than three adjournments, co-chairman Shim Sang-jung declared that the first item, a review and vote on the party platform, had been passed. This prompted members of the party establishment to rush the podium, surround the party chairs, and begin kicking and punching co-chairs Cho Joon-ho and Rhyu Si-min. The scene was pandemonium, and the meeting was finally adjourned indefinitely as establishment members commandeered the podium.
There can be no justification for ignoring democratic procedure and resorting to violence in a political party. The occupation of the podium and assault on the leadership bring to mind the so-called “Yong-pal” (leader of a political gang) episode seen with the conservative party in the 1980s, when a gang leader was hired to disrupt opposition party operations. It feels like watching arrogant pre-modern leftists so convinced of their own rightness that they feel they don’t have to follow procedure. How can we expect such people to lead progressive politics when they can‘t even foresee the effects of their own actions? The root cause of this episode is the party’s main faction that is stingy about accepting others’ views and works solely for its own dominance.
A great deal of responsibility can be placed on the shoulders of co-chairwoman Lee Jung-hee, who declared her resignation and left the site just before the meeting. When expectations are great, so too is disappointment. Critics are now saying that by leaving the meeting site and turning a blind eye to the establishment’s disruption of operations, Lee contributed to the events downward spiral into violence. It’s terrible to think of the blow her irresponsible about-face dealt to all the young voters out there who pinned their hopes on progressive politics.
What this incident makes clear is that progressive politics is in desperate need of reorganization. There is no future for it under the current UPP system. With this episode, we have arrived at a situation that cannot be resolved simply by finding out whether there were improprieties in the proportional representation contest, determining whether to hold a general party members’ vote, and taking steps to get things under control. The people who supported the UPP in the general election are now lamenting their wasted votes, and asking just what the difference is between the party’s recent behavior and the thuggish tactics of the far-right Korea Parent Federation.
Serious discussions are needed to determine whether there is momentum within the UPP to remake progressive politics, or whether the entire landscape needs to be remade. This latest situation revealed the backwardness of South Korean progressive politics. No progress can be made without cutting out this festering wound. Things are past the point where the situation can be resolved through holding electronic votes. The progressive party crisis is a crisis for all reformists and progressives. The public is now calling the progressives’ abilities to heal themselves into question. It may be painful to remove a part of yourself, but we hope to see them showing the people the capacity of progressive politics to stake out a future, whatever it takes.
　
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