Pres. Park vetoes parliamentary amendment, and tongue-lashes her own party

Posted on : 2015-06-26 16:47 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
With no apology for handling of MERS outbreak, Park berates Saenuri members, deepening party divide

President Park Geun-hye vetoed a bipartisan plan calling for reconsideration of an amendment to the National Assembly Act on June 25.

She also let fly with a harsh denunciation of the National Assembly and political parties on both sides during a Cabinet meeting at the Blue House same day. She made no mention of dismay or apology for poor handling of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak.

Opposition parties responded to Park’s comments by declaring a full-scale halt to their National Assembly schedule.

While vetoing the plan on June 25, Park portrayed the entire legislature as stuck in “old-fashioned politicking” and delivered a vote of no confidence in the floor leader of her own ruling Saenuri Party (NFP). The comments are expected to further deepen the divide between the party’s pro-Park wing and other groups, while leaving relations between the ruling and opposition parties - and between the ruling party and Blue House - in a morass of chaos and conflict.

Park delivered a 16-minute-long introductory statement at the Cabinet meeting, dedicating a short portion at the beginning to calls for an administration response to the MERS outbreak before devoting the next 12 minutes to a tirade against the National Assembly, Saenuri Party, and opposition. With a rigid expression on her face, she gave the reasons for her veto of the National Assembly Act amendment. From there, her voice grew more impassioned as she went after politicians and her own party - calling at one point for the public to “pass judgment in the elections.”

The unexpectedly harsh rhetoric left some politicians questioning whether Park hoped to use her veto as an opportunity to escape the crisis stemming from the botched MERS response.

Referring to the amendment, Park declared, “When you paralyze everything down to administrative functions, you are inviting a crisis of the state. I have no choice but to exercise veto power.”

“I cannot fathom the motives behind compromising the principle of separation of powers and attempting an amendment that past administrations were unable to pass,” she continued.

“The ruling and opposition parties rushed into an agreement without sufficient examination in order to put pressure on the administration,” she concluded.

Park also let loose what amounted to a stern declaration of war against the National Assembly.

“Politicians must not take advantage of the public and mislead them,” she said.

“Politicians are always holding the administration accountable for everything,” she added. “There has only been constant conflict, animosity, and criticism toward the administration and administration policies.”

She also noted that bills to create jobs and help the economy “have remain tied up in the National Assembly for over two years.”

“It is simply wrenching to see how politicians always rush to resolve the things where their own political interests are bound up, rather than the bills that concern public welfare,” she lamented.

In what came across as a release of pent-up frustration, Park declared, “The National Assembly is tying down necessary legislation with its partisan maneuvering, while making big deals and passing the partisan things they want.”

“It’s nonsensical,” she concluded.

Park’s attack appears at least partly motivated by hopes of using public opinion against politicians to recover some of the grip the administration lost with its handling of the MERS situation. It’s a signal that she does not plan to accept becoming a “lame duck” early on, with the political center of gravity shifting toward the National Assembly and ruling party as she enters the midpoint of her term. It’s also a declaration that she plans to take her message straight to the public rather than the parliament.

Part of Park’s tactics involved “shock therapy” and pressure on her own party.

“I question how much cooperation the ruling party’s parliamentary control tower sought in the administration and party’s efforts to help the economy,” she noted, sardonically singling out Saenuri floor leader Yoo Seong-min.

“You should be representing the public will and speaking for the people, not using them for your own political philosophy and political calculus,” she continued.

Park even went so far as to present Yoo publicly as a “traitor.”

“I have gone around helping the party and its candidates, and what I got in return was political and moral emptiness,” she complained.

Park also sent a message of dire warning to the Saenuri Party for next year’s general elections.

“The time has come to end the kind of outdated politicking where you cast aside trust just to win elections and use the people’s lives as pawns for your own interests,” she said of the Saenuri Party.

The remarks seem to suggest the president’s feelings about her own party at the moment: that its members are betraying trust in them and failing to cooperation with the administration out of concern over the 2016 parliamentary elections.

Indeed, Park made several references to the elections and “passing judgment” in her remarks, which appeared to be a move to both remind her party of her own still-solid support base and to call on those supporters to band together and help rescue her from her own dilemma.

“The politics of betrayal, where you use the election as a means to an end and then betray trust once you’ve been elected, is giving rise to hegemonism and the politics of closing ranks,” she declared. “The public will need to pass judgment when the election comes.”

Later, she asserted that “a new political culture will only take root once the public has made the right choice in the election.”

After Park’s veto, the Saenuri Party appeared to accept Park‘s message, declining to vote on a reconsideration of the amendment during a general lawmakers’ meeting at the National Assembly that afternoon. Yoo Seong-min, for his part, appeared to be preparing himself to step down, but decided during the meeting to stay on. Speaking after the meeting, he said his fellow lawmakers had “expressed concern and reproach for the troubled communication between me and the Blue House.”

“I feel very sorry about that,” he added.

Political critic Yu Chang-seon took aim at Park’s remarks later the same day.

“When you go before the public and criticize the National Assembly and politicians, at a time when even an expression of responsibility and humility over the MERS situation as president before the nation would scarcely be enough, that’s the real disregard for separation of powers and an attempt to rule over the National Assembly,” Yu said.

“President Park is mistaken if she thinks a leadership approach that might have worked under the Yushin dictatorship is going to be tolerated today,” he continued, referring to the Yushin Constitution introduced by Park’s father Park Chung-hee during his presidency in the 1970s.

“It isn’t proper to the public for a president to be fighting with the ruling party floor leader while a national crisis is going on,” Yu said.

 

By Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent

 

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