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By Shin Seung-keun, Staff writer

“We will strive to increase consultation between the ruling party and the administration, so that the people view the ruling party as taking a leading role in running the country.”

These are the words of Kim Moo Sung, floor leader of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP), in his opening address during a meeting for the GNP’s National Assembly members on Aug. 30 at an education center for Ministry of Knowledge Economy government employees in Cheonan. Kim also said that responsibility lies with the GNP to lead the government in running the nation in accordance with the wishes of the people. This was a public declaration of the “party leads principle” philosophy at a meeting to discuss plans for the second half of the Lee Myung-bak administration.

At a time when Prime Minister-nominee Kim Tae-ho, Culture Minister-nominee Shin Jae-min and Knowledge Economy Minister-nominee Lee Jae-hoon have all withdrawn their nominations, the relationship between the GNP and the Lee administration shows signs of change. High-ranking GNP officials have stated the party will cease constantly changing policy directions, and that they will reduce censoring addresses to the public.

“Power has already transferred to the party,” said GNP Lawmaker Hong Joon-pyo during a meeting with reporters. “Power relationships are like an hourglass, in that they have fallen from the top to the bottom, and there is no such thing as eternal power.”

In his view, Hong said, the party had “taken the initiative.”

Those both within and outside of the GNP have determined that consciousness and power relationships inside the ruling camp have fundamentally changed during the course of the party’s thorough defeat in the June 2 local elections and its national convention on July 14. The have also determined that the GNP will no longer swallow “the orders of Cheong Wa Dae.”

The June 2 local elections led GNP National Assembly members, particularly those from the metropolitan region, to believe that President Lee Myung-bak could not guarantee them victory in general elections.

One lawmaker from the metropolitan region, categorized as a pro-Lee, said, “The local elections proved that following the orders of the administration would lead to total defeat at the next general election, and lawmakers have no choice but to follow national opinion rather than the president.”

Observers seem to share the opinion that, amid these circumstances, the GNP’s internal leadership reshuffle at its national convention on July 14 set in stone a structure that would no longer simply swallow any orders issued by the Cheong Wa Dae (the presidential office in South Korea or Blue House).

The Cheong Wa Dae did succeed in pushing former GNP floor leader Ahn Sang-soo, the pro-Lee lawmaker who has faithfully carried through “the will of Cheong Wa Dae” since the launch of the Lee Myung-bak administration, into the role of new GNP chairman at the July 14 national convention. However, the accession of so-called “straight-talking leaders” such as Hong Joon-pyo, Chung Doo-Un and Suh Byung-soo to the GNP’s “supreme group,” a collective leadership system, means that party is no longer able to fulfil the will of Cheong Wa Dae.

Indeed, when Cheong Wa Dae demanded the approval of problematic figures such as Prime Minister-designate Kim Tae-ho, lawmakers such as Hong Joon-pyo, Chung Doo-Un and Suh Byung-soo demanded “replacement of the lying Prime Minister” and Cheong Wa Dae eventually bowed to their demands. Floor leader Kim Moo-sung, moreover, the figure in charge of parliamentary measures, is prioritizing a so-called “doctrine of restoring the politics of dialogue,” placing importance upon compromise with the opposition.

During a meeting on Aug. 30, GNP lawmakers also flung uninhibited criticism at the Lee administration, demonstrating a change in relations between the two. Minister of Strategy and Finance Yoon Jeung-hyun gave an explanation of 2010 tax system reform and budget plans, urging the GNP to give its support. However, GNP lawmakers came back with a shower of blunt assertions, as Joo Sung-young said that the minister was keeping the important parts of the plan to himself and that the people had lost all faith in Lee Myung-bak administration.

Lawmaker Kwon Young-jin said that the administration kept going on about the working classes, but the working classes were not benefiting much from it, while Lawmaker Lee Jin-bok said that policy on small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) was going nowhere because the Ministry of Strategy and Finance and the Financial Services Commission were out of sync.

The interpretation offered by those in the political sector of President Lee’s forced appointment of Korean National Police Agency Commissioner-designate Cho Hyun-oh, meanwhile, is that President Lee is unable to give up Cho as somebody well-qualified for powerful enforcer of governmental authority in the second half of his term in office.

Immediately after the mass withdrawal of Prime Minister-designate Kim Tae-ho and other figures nominated by him for high positions, President Lee emphasized that he would take those events as a starting point for efforts to let the principles of a fair society take root not only in public officialdom but in all areas, including politics, economics, society and culture. This has prompted observations, however, that the president may be embarking on a large-scale turnaround through a drive for corrective inspection.

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