hankyoreh

a poster for New Politics Alliance for Democracy candidate Cho Chan-woo

By Lee You Ju-hyun, staff reporter

Ahn Cheol-soo, co-leader of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD), took direct aim at President Park Geun-hye on Mar. 30, five days after launching the new party. Ahn asked for a private meeting with Park to ask her why she has not kept the campaign pledge she made when running for president two years ago to do away with party nominations of candidates in municipal elections.

Park is not likely to immediately accept Ahn’s proposal. Even inside the new liberal party, there is hardly anyone who a meeting will actually take place.

The reason that Ahn is making a public appeal for a private meeting with the president nonetheless is that he wants to shift the focus of the debate about the municipal election nomination system away from his party. He hopes to redraw the battle lines to Park Geun-hye vs. Ahn Cheol-soo, and the Saenuri Party (NFP) vs. the New Politics Alliance for Democracy.

Until now, the issue about the nomination system had had less to do with a deadlock between the ruling and opposition parties and more to do with disagreement within the new opposition party. It represents a conflict between principle and pragmatism.

“Now that a new party has been made - which was the prerequisite for abolishing the local candidate nomination system - there is little point for people inside the party to argue about whether or not to do it,” said Lee Cheol-hui, director of the Dumun Political Strategy Institute. “By taking action to put Park on the spot, Ahn can nudge the feuding factions of the party to direct their energy against their opponents.”

In a televised address on Mar. 28 in which he presented the new party’s policies, Ahn emphasized that he would choose the high road, making clear that there would be no yielding on this point. “We may suffer in the short term, but ultimately it is the way to salvation,” he said.

But elections are merciless. If the NPAD loses in the June 4 municipal elections, Ahn will bear the brunt of the blame, which will damage his reputation as a politician.

Ahn is already past the point of no return. In the end, he has no choice but to launch a full-out attack on the ruling party under the banner of reforming municipal election nominations.

It is significant that Ahn echoed Park’s catchphrase of “a politics of principle and trust” on Sunday as he called on her to keep her promise. This is the same language that Park used when she was a lawmaker and was tussling with former presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Lee Myung-bak to achieve her objectives. Ahn’s use of Park’s rhetoric of promises and ethics is designed to draw her into the framework of a discussion of the municipal candidate nomination system.

Ahn also reminded his audience of how Park had emphasized “keeping our promise to the Korean public” around the time of controversial revisions to the Sejong City plan. He recalled how she had quoted a Chinese proverb about a man named Weisheng from the state of Lu in the Spring and Autumn Period in China. Weisheng faithfully waited under a bridge for a lover who never comes, finally drowning when the river flooded. Park had praised Weisheng highly for his “sincerity.” In a reference to the comment, Ahn asked how Park thinks about the death of Weisheng today.

The direct, adversarial tone of Ahn’s remarks also shows that he is moving away from his former vague and inscrutable behavior as he transforms into a pragmatic politician. “As a politician in the opposition party, Ahn is doing the right thing by trying to take responsibility for issues that he has brought up,” said one senior figure in the NPAD who has kept his distance from Ahn. “He seems to be in the process of evolving into a realistic politician.”

Calling for a one-on-one meeting with the president is also a strategy designed to draw attention to Ahn’s status as a leader of the opposition party.

“In the past, Ahn had to challenge both the Democratic Party and the Saenuri Party. Now, though, he is the head of the country’s largest opposition party. As such, he has arrived at a place where the ruling party is the obvious target,” said Yun Hui-yung, head of the polling analysis center for Min Consulting. “He needs to demonstrate that, even though he isn’t as strong as during the presidential election, he still has a strong message to deliver.”

The problem is how to develop and elaborate the argument about abolishing the party nomination system for local elections, which is an issue that strikes the average South Korean as esoteric. During the local elections in 2010, growing frustration with the Lee Myung-bak administration and issues that hit close to home such as free school lunches coincided to foster voter sympathy for the opposition party.

But for the moment, criticism of Park Geun-hye’s realpolitik has gained little traction, and the ruling party has not opened itself up to attack in terms of the people’s livelihood.

“They need to treat the abolition of party nominations for municipal elections as the jumping off point,” said Lee Cheol-hui. “They should link this with the various campaign pledges in areas such as economic democratization and welfare that Park has failed to pursue. That way, they can establish a firm contrast between the party that breaks its word and the party that keeps its word.”

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