GNP Unveiling Party Reform Measures Truth Behind GNP's Popularity Opposition Parties Take By-Elections, but GNP Floored GNP Leadership Urged to Resign Over By-Election Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye Should Repent First It's Change or Die for the GNP, by Ryu Geun-il Lee Calls Truce in Battle of GNP Presidential Hopefuls A Chance for Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, by Yang Sang-hoon 'Power Struggle Will Cost GNP the Election' Is This Really the End of Infighting in the GNP?

The reform proposals announced at a press conference include a 'committee to monitor mudslinging between rival presidential contenders' under the party chairman; inviting presidential contenders to participate in party management; inviting outside leaders into the party leadership and forsaking nominations in districts where party officials are involved in corruption.

GNP chairman Kang Jae-sup drinks water during a press conference on Monday.

Lee said he was “pondering” whether to accept the proposals. But the camp of his main rival, former GNP chairwoman Park Geun-hye, welcomed them as “satisfactory” and rallied behind Kang. Lee's chief aide Rep. Joo Ho-young said the ex-mayor’s camp “could demand the resignation of the party leadership unless additional steps are taken on essential issues in party conflict like the formula for the (presidential) primary.” Another Lee aide said, "For the time being, we’re demanding additional reform proposals."

Rep. Lee Jae-oh, in effect the leader of the Lee Myung-bak faction, on Monday told lawmakers in the camp he wants to resign from the party leadership. But members of the faction including the former mayor’s elder brother, National Assembly Deputy Speaker Lee Sang-deuk, dissuaded him from making a formal announcement.

Former Seoul mayor Lee Myung-bank (left), the front-runner presidential contender of the GNP, is lost in thought while meeting a group of lawmakers from Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party at his office in Seoul on Monday. Park Geun-hye, the former GNP chairwoman and Lee’s main rival, talks to reporters at the National Assembly on Monday.

The party chairman was elected on July 11 last year with the help of the Park Geun-hye camp. The party convention was seen as a proxy war fought on behalf of Park and Lee Myung-bak, and the Lee camp still sees Kang as pro-Park. But Lee is reluctant to call for Kang's resignation outright for fear of being blamed for throwing the party into disarray.

But party officials and lawmakers in the Lee faction were less restrained, urging Kang to step down and calling for the camp to seize the party leadership and create the “new” GNP Lee has in mind. The Park camp cites concerns that the party could effectively break up if Kang resigns and leaves the leadership in tatters. Members of the faction reason the opposition party can ill afford to nominate a presidential candidate under an emergency steering committee, and would have to hold a party convention prior to the primary, in which case the party could split in two.

But the party leadership is already on the brink of collapse. Rep. Lee Jae-oh was expected to clarify on Tuesday if he will quit. Leadership member Chung Hyung-keun says he will take his cue from Lee Jae-oh. If Lee quits and Chung follows, four of the five elected members of the leadership will have resigned, leaving only Kang and the appointed members. Kang Chang-hee and Chun Yu-ok already resigned on Tuesday last week after the GNP’s crippling by-election defeat.

Elsewhere in the party, views on the reform proposals are also split. Lawmakers Hong Joon-pyo and Chun Yu-ok said the proposals made are designed not to reform the party but to protect the chairman’s hide, and called on Kang to resign. But Rep. Lee Kang-too, the chairman of the party’s Central Committee, and Rep. Kim Yong-kap expressed support of the proposals.

(englishnews@chosun.com )