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Former Grand National Party leader Park Geun-hye held a news conference Sunday criticizing the party¡¯s nomination process as lacking in principle and a ¡°significant step backward¡± for Korean party politics. Park said she would not be canvassing for GNP candidates running for National Assembly seats in the April 9 general election. While not pledging to lend her support for the so-called pro-Park lawmakers or those who have vowed to run as independents after being eliminated from the GNP¡¯s nomination list, Park said those lawmakers had been treated unfairly and that she wished they would win. She was in effect urging voters to choose those who defected from the GNP after having been eliminated in the nomination.
Her speech was marked by the bitterness and resentment she clearly feels toward the GNP. By preventing the GNP from capturing a majority of the seats in the National Assembly, Park may be seeking to teach the party a lesson for having snubbed her and those who have been loyal to her.
Ahead of Park¡¯s declaration of war against the GNP, former lawmaker Hong Sa-duk of the pro-Park alliance announced he would run in the same district as GNP leader Kang Jae-sup, who is orchestrating the party¡¯s election strategy. Rather than distancing herself from supporters who left the party and are using her name to gain voter support in their parliamentary bids, Park has not only cheered them on, but has effectively gone over to their side. Judging from her actions, it appears Park¡¯s intentions are to let the United Democratic Party win more seats for the sake of teaching the GNP a lesson for having mistreated her and her aides, rather than offering the conservative party a chance to realize its policies and beliefs after 10 years in opposition. The reason why GNP Chairman Kang called a press conference immediately after Park and announced he would not run for a seat was probably because he understood her true intentions perfectly.
No matter how you look at it, there are two reasons for the GNP¡¯s predicament. They are the mainstream forces within the GNP who sought to turn the party into a group of Lee Myung-bak loyalists to satisfy their factional and individual greed, as well as the president¡¯s political insensitivity and ineptness in defusing the crisis. At the same time, the actions of Park, who is still part of the GNP establishment yet seeking to topple the party by acting in concert with those who have left it, are not worthy of a true politician. If Park succeeds in letting the GNP feel her grudge, then the Lee administration and the GNP will become politically handicapped, unable to realize their policy objectives. If Park does not succeed, she will end up ruining her political career. Even those who supported Park or cheered her on silently are probably watching in dismay at the decision she has made that has pitted her own political career against the very future of her party.
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