hankyoreh

Newly elected Minjoo Party leader Choo Mi-ae waves at the party’s convention at Olympic Stadium in Seoul’s Songpa district

The opposition Minjoo Party concluded seven months of leadership under Kim Jong-in and launched a new leadership under lawmaker Choo Mi-ae at its convention on Aug. 27.

The leadership under Choo, which includes many members of the party’s Moon Jae-in (former party leader and 2012 presidential candidate) wing with a stated focus on “clarity,” replaces a system under Kim that called for a greater moderate voice. Relations between the opposition and the ruling Saenuri Party - which established its own leadership of loyalists supporting President Park Geun-hye with a message of “supporting the Blue House” - appear poised to grow even tenser with a new Minjoo Party leadership advocating a “strong opposition.”

Speaking a press interview that day, newly elected leader Choo said opposition to a deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system with US Forces Korea “was [originally] our platform, and as party leader I will make that platform clear.”

Choo also voiced her plans for the investigation into the 2014 Sewol ferry sinking.

“I intend to extend the special Sewol commission’s period of operation and bring to light the truth that the Park Geun-hye administration is trying to conceal,” she said.

The party had avoided any major clash with the Saenuri Party on the THAAD issue under the emergency committee leadership of Kim Jong-in, which shied away from overplaying its hand. The message from Choo is that with the new leadership coming to power with the backing of key Minjoo Party supporters calling for stronger measures on the two issues, the party now plans to show its colors more clearly than before.

The Saenuri Party is already on the alert.

“There’s a chance Choo will be much more combative with the ruling party than floor leader Woo Sang-ho,” a high-ranking Saenuri official told the Hankyoreh in a telephone interview.

“But if Rep. Choo uses the opposition’s advantage in the National Assembly to pursue a strong line without showing flexibility, it won‘t help at all in gaining the public’s support,” the official cautioned.

Kim Young-woo, a Saenuri lawmaker and chairperson of the National Assembly National Defense Committee, sent a message of pressure to Choo in a press conference the same day.

“We hope she will see the THAAD issue from the perspective of the Korean Peninsula’s security coming first. As leader, she needs to state what messages exist besides a THAAD deployment for North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles,” Kim said.

Frictions between the ruling and opposition parties now appear poised to heat up during the National Assembly’s regular session and parliamentary audits, which begin next month.

Minjoo Party insiders showed a mixture of hope and concern over the more aggressive stance.

“We were somewhat vague in responding to the THAAD and Sewol issues for fear it would be an obstacle in broadening our base, but our key supporters ended up dropping away,” said one first-term lawmaker. “Right now, restoring our traditional base needs to be the priority.”

In contrast, a veteran lawmaker from the greater Seoul area said it was “good to restore the ‘opposition character,’” but warned that the party was “unlikely to produce results on both the THAAD and Sewol issues.”

“If they get too ambitious, we could end up losing a lot of moderates from getting caught in a hard-line confrontation without visible results,” the lawmaker cautioned.

Another variable is whether President Park decides to pursue a more communicative approach in her dealings with the opposition. The Blue House said it “does not have anything scheduled yet” for a meeting between Park and the new ruling and opposition leadership, but such a meeting could take place after her tour of Russia, China, and Laos between Sept. 2 and 9 and the extended Chuseok holiday from Sept. 14 to 18. With Park’s tour marking her first discussions with the leaders of countries involved in the THAAD debate, one possibility is that she may invite ruling and opposition party leaders to the Blue House on her return to explain the outcome and ask for the opposition‘s cooperation.

By Lee Se-young, Seong Yeon-cheol and Choi Hye-jung, staff reporters

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