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Grand National Party (GNP) chairman Choe Byung-yul spoke at the Kwanhun Press Club on Tuesday, and he spoke about the upcoming National Assembly election and related current issues. His appearance caused a great deal of interest, because of the GNP's loss of vitality in the wake of its truckloads of corruption, and because of the humiliating dive in public support for what is the largest party in the Assembly. All he did, however, was reconfirm that the GNP is a party out of step with the times, a party abandoned by the times, and a party that ignores the times. It would be the same to say the GNP is out of step with the people, that it has been abandoned by the people, and that it ignores the people. It's not only because in his speech and in answering questions he showed no sign of the desperate resolve you'd expect of the captain of a sinking ship. His analyses, solutions, and everything else were off target and wandering.
According to Choe, the source of the crisis at the GNP is its illegal campaign funds from the 2002 presidential election, symbolized by the delivery of illegal monetary donations by the truckload, and for that he blamed former party chairman and presidential candidate Lee Hoi-chang. Those events, however, are only the distant cause, and not the immediate reason for breakdown of the party. The problem is that his party has not dealt with the issue in a way becoming of the leading party in the Assembly, and that it has not shown the people that it is struggling to make up for what it has done and be reborn, also as a party with some life in it. Lee Hoi-chang is someone who has already disappeared into history. Even if he were to three times over insist that he should take all the blame, the GNP still wouldn't be back in business, because it has failed at doing emergency first aid. You get the impression that lately, a day in the life of the GNP is to get beaten on in the boxing ring with President Roh Moo-hyun, then maybe get dragged into the ring the next day with Uri Party for more of the same. Everyone's saying the GNP must die first then be completely reborn. It's clear who must die first. That would be none other than Choe.
Such is the situation, and yet he says he's going to submit his fate to the party's candidate selection committee. If that's what the chairman is going to do, who among the rest of them will want to sacrifice himself for the party? Both party and individual must know when to engage in sacrifice, if both are going to be reborn. It's only natural that slogans about a "revolution in candidate selection" and "a second founding of the party" sound like empty slogans. How can the country possibly be asked to just wait a little longer in such conditions?
To many people around the country, the GNP looks like a deserted old home, frequented by no one, and it has to realize that it is gradually becoming a haunted house that no one even wants to look at. If it can't show the country some blueprints for revival, then it might a well declare that it's going to choose total self-destruction. That way, someone else would at least be able to build a foundation on the destruction, and construct something new.
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