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Kim Moo-sung after announcing his resignation as leader of the Saenuri Party

The Blue House’s only response yesterday to the ruling Saenuri Party‘s rout in the Apr. 13 parliamentary election came in the form of a spokesperson’s statement. “We hope the 20th National Assembly will be a parliament that looks after the public’s welfare and works for the people of South Korea,” it read. “These seem to be the demands expressed by the public there.” The statement didn’t even include the typical post-election platitudes about “humbly accepting the public‘s will.” The Blue House doesn’t seem to recognize at all that these election results were a stern judgment of President Park Geun-hye’s arrogance, uncommunicativeness, abuses, and incompetence.

Park may very well be pounding her desk and hyperventilating in anger right now. With her party now in the minority, she is going to have a tougher time running things the way she’d planned. The way people are already crying “lame duck,” it‘s easy to imagine how indignant she feels. She may be blaming the voters for backing the opposition, blaming her party members for a poorly executed campaign, blaming her advisers for failing to predict the seats accurately. The last thing she’s probably thinking is that the one she should be most angry with is herself.

This kind of attitude is a tragedy both for Park and her country. At this point, she needs to acknowledge that she‘s lost her grip on governance and look for a new way forward in the way she runs things, her relations with the National Assembly, and ties between the Saenuri Party and the Blue House. If she insists on blaming others and “going her own path,” that will only bring greater misfortune on her and the country as a whole.

Right now, the Saenuri Party is in chaos over the resignation of Kim Moo-sung as leader. Its most urgent order of business is establishing a new relationship with the Blue House. All the talk about “true people” and “pro-Park candidates” led to a breakdown in the party leadership, and Park won’t find any solutions if she sticks to this top-down relationship between the Blue House and the party. Any attempt to get involved in running the party or choosing its next presidential contenders would be all the more dangerous at a time when most of them have suffered near-fatal blows. The President is on the skids right now, and the more she succumbs to the temptation to anoint the candidate who will follow in her wake, the sooner she really will find herself a lame duck.

If she does hope to patch things up with the public, her first step should be making some personnel reforms. More specifically, she needs to rid herself of the retainers who currently hover around her. Senior Blue House Secretary for Political Affairs Hyun Ki-hwan has already announced his intent to resign over the election debacle, but that’s not enough. No real governance reforms are possible so long as Park is surrounded by yes-men who walk on eggshells around her and tell her what she wants to hear whenever things get difficult.

Politics is like mountain-climbing: the path downhill is always more dangerous. There are no wings for when you fall. And President Park is already on her way down.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]