hankyoreh

Liberty Korea Party leader Hwang Kyo-ahn and floor leader Na Kyung-won at the head of a rally lambasting the administration of South Korean President Moon Jae-in and calling for the resignation of Justice Minister Cho Kuk in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square on Oct. 3. (Kim Gyoung-ho

There are no signs of give-and-take in South Korean politics — it’s been replaced by a power struggle between angry supporters of the two sides. Liberal supporters of prosecutorial reform have been holding protests in Seocho, while conservatives demanding the resignation of Justice Minister Cho Kuk have been assembling in Gwanghwamun. The Seocho protests are more spontaneous in nature, but the two sides are the same in their energy and desperation, as if the question of which side could mobilize the largest number of protesters would determine where justice and injustice lie. This is leading to criticism both inside and outside the political realm that the public are exhausted both in body and soul because the country’s politicians are failing in their responsibility to resolve conflicts on behalf of their supporters.

On the morning of Oct. 4, the leadership of the ruling and opposition parties offered conflicting assessments of the rally held the previous day at Gwanghwamun, Seoul, demanding Cho’s resignation. The Democratic Party slammed the rally as having been orchestrated from above and accused protesters of violence, while the Liberty Korea Party (LKP) underlined its significance by claiming that office workers and other ordinary people had come out of their own volition. The two parties offered identical assessments of the candlelight rally demanding prosecutorial reform held at Seocho on Sept. 28, except approval and disapproval were now reversed.

“The Oct. 3 Great Struggle for Popular Sovereignty is a major watershed point for putting liberal democracy back on the right path,” LKP leader Hwang Kyo-ahn wrote on his Facebook page on Friday.

“Perfectly ordinary Koreans were crying out for justice and reason in a manner that evokes the ‘necktie brigade’ from 1987,” LKP floor leader Na Kyung-won said in a meeting about the parliamentary audit on Friday morning. Na was referring to the ordinary citizens who joined the democratization protests in the late 1980s.

But the rally drew fire from the other side. “Hundreds of people were bussed there by local committees. Is that the sort of thing a political party ought to be doing?” asked Democratic Party leader Lee Hae-chan.

“Unlike the assembly for prosecutorial reform in Seocho, which politically conscious people joined of their own free will, the Liberty Korea Party’s violent assembly was organized and mobilized by the party and by religious groups,” said Park Gwang-on, a member of the Democratic Party’s Supreme Council.

The Democratic Party submitted a complaint, signed by Lee Hae-chan, to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office accusing Chun Gwang-hun, pastor at the Sarang Jeil Church and a leader of the rally, of inciting insurrection and aiding and abetting mob violence.

The extreme reactions by the two parties prompted National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang to call on all sides to exercise discretion. “The people who claim to be political leaders are so focused on the numbers game of how many people attended the demonstrations that they don’t seem to care if the country is split down the middle. I urgently call on politicians in the ruling and opposition parties to use some restraint and to work together to promote public unity,” Moon said during a meeting of senior secretaries and aides on Friday morning.

There are also calls for soul-searching from the political establishment. Critics say that both the ruling and opposition parties are obsessed with exploiting the debate so that they can gain the upper hand.

“As the ruling party, it’s our responsibility to win over the public as a whole, but our political activities are focused solely on our base. That might be useful in the short term, but down the road it’s going to be a liability,” said one worried first-term lawmaker with the Democratic Party during a telephone call with the Hankyoreh.

A third-term LKP lawmaker from the southeastern Yeongnam region expressed a similar viewpoint. “Public energy needs to be channeled into normalizing representative democracy. The party needs to reflect on whether continuing to organize these rallies is beneficial for normalizing politics and normalizing our society,” the lawmaker said.

Experts said that the country’s politicians need to return to their proper role. “The citizens elected the president and lawmakers to be entrusted with the authority to lead the country, but now those same citizens have decided to take direct action. That’s something politicians should be taking seriously,” said Kim Man-heum, director of the Korean Academy of Politics and Leadership.

“Prosecutorial reform is only one of a large number of reform projects in the areas of the economy, foreign policy, and public livelihood that were demanded by the candlelight protests. The ruling party has a heavy responsibility for taking the long view and actively working to restore calm to this situation,” said Shin Gyeong-a, a professor of sociology at Hallym University.

By Kim Won-chul, Kim Mi-na, and Seo Young-ji, staff reporters

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