hankyoreh

By Im In-tack

On Thursday, the Grand National Party announced it would change its name to the “Saenuri Party”. Saenuri means “new world” in Korean. The party’s emergency measures committee held a plenary session in the morning where the amendment was approved by vote. Final confirmation for the name change will be sought at a national committee meeting on February 13.

“Saenuri Party signifies a new country and a new world, by combining the ‘sae’ of ‘saeroum’ [newness] with the pure Korean word ‘nuri,’ [world] which has a broader meaning than ‘nara’ [country; part of the GNP’s Korean name],” said spokesman Hwang Yeong-cheol. The party’s publicity and planning department held a public party renaming contest which received more than 10,000 entries; it then presented three of these (Saenuridang, Saehuimang Hangukdang [Korea New Hope Party] and Hanguk Mindang [Korea People’s Party]) to the emergency committee, which chose Saenuridang. The name Grand National Party is thus disappearing after 14 years and 3 months of use. The GNP was born in November 1997 through the merging of the New Korea Party and the Democratic Party.

On the same day, the GNP made official its merger with the Mirae Huimang Yeondae (formerly the Chinbak Yeondae). Once the merger is complete, the GNP’s number of seats in parliament will increase from 166 to 174.

The person responsible for the new party name is Jo Dong-won, head of the publicity and planning committee. The copywriter’s creation comes just four weeks after he was invited last month by emergency chairwoman Park Geun-hye to take up this key position in the party. Park is famous for penning the advertising slogan, “A bed is not a piece of furniture.” At his first parliamentary policy meeting last month, his contribution was, “We need to go crazy.” After the meeting, when party officials asked him what going crazy involved, Jo reportedly said, “We just need to do the opposite of what the GNP has done until now.”

Not everyone is crazy about the new name. “A political party must have future-oriented philosophical values. It would be better just to call it the Conservative Party,” said one lawmaker from the southeastern Yeongnam region. The renaming also brought satire and criticism from netizens, who suggested the name “Danuridang” [meaning “All Benefit-Reaping Party”] would be more appropriate.

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