Park Geun-hye continues her old self-interested ways

Posted on : 2012-06-25 11:39 KST Modified on : 2012-06-25 11:39 KST
NFP’s Presidential frontrunner still apparently making decisions based on her own political well-being
 June 22. (by Lee Jeong-ah
June 22. (by Lee Jeong-ah

By Kim Jong-cheol, senior staff writer

Park Geun-hye of the New Frontier Party (NFP) is the most powerful person in politics at the moment. She is, for all intents and purposes, owner of the ruling NFP, and the person to beat in the upcoming presidential election. For this reason, her words and actions always draw a lot of attention. She has emphasized “change” as her political slogan, but many say she remains bound by outdated thinking and wedge tactics on important issues.

A case in point was her first statement Friday on the situation at MBC, a major broadcaster where reporters have been on strike for 145 days now. Park told reporters, “I think it’s very dismaying the strike has arrived at the point of punitive measures. I’d like to see the situation normalized quickly through compromise and dialogue between labor and management.” Despite expressing “dismay” instead of calling the strike an “illegal political action,” as NFP floor leader Lee Hanh-koo did, she also echoed him and other members of the party leadership in proposing that labor and management sort it out for themselves.

In a telephone interview June 24 with the Hankyoreh, Semyung University professor Jeong Yeon-woo responded to the remarks by saying, “The MBC strike isn’t a labor-management issue, but an issue of network democracy that started because those in political power installed their lackeys at the networks. Obviously, it is politicians who need to be offering a solution.”

“In going on about labor and the network resolving the issue, Park is either showing how little she knows about the nature of the situation or irresponsibly pretending not to see it,” Jeong said.

An NFP lawmaker representing a district in the greater Seoul area said Park actually made the situation even knottier by putting her support behind network president Kim Jae-chul.

“Even [NFP lawmaker] Chung Mong-joon is commenting on the problem with the parachute appointments,” the lawmaker said, referring to the practice of putting associates of powerful political figures in management positions they would otherwise not qualify for. “It is extremely frustrating to see Park, the frontrunner for the presidency, coming out belatedly with this unconvincing and unnuanced position and calling it a solution.”

Speaking in a press conference on June 22, Chung said the MBC situation “should as a rule be resolved by labor and management.”

He also said, “It is not desirable to have certain programs cancelled arbitrarily by management or for political reasons, or to have a structure where someone who served in a particular candidate’s camp becomes the president of a public broadcasting network after that candidate wins the presidential election.”

Park also opted for neutrality when the National Assembly voted in February on Constitutional Court nominee Cho Yong-hwan. Nominated by the opposition Democratic United Party, Cho was subjected to more than seven months of ideological attacks from conservative lawmakers in the Grand National Party, the NFP’s previous incarnation. Then-emergency committee member Kim Jong-in voiced the opinion that the sabotaging of Cho’s nomination was “problematic,” but Park insisted on leaving the decision up to the lawmakers without stating her own views. While remaining neutral on paper, she effectively sided with the conservatives’ red-baiting tactics. It is a theme that also underlay her remarks on a recent scandal involving the Unified Progressive Party’s proportional representation elections, when she said, “People whose national views are suspect should not be National Assembly members.”

A former ruling party lawmaker said, “Park Geun-hye continues taking a leading role in changes for economic democracy and welfare, but her way of thinking is stuck when it comes to things like national identity and ideology.”

Analysts suggested Park was paying too much attention to pleasing conservatives and powerful figures like President Lee Myung-bak ahead of the election in December.

An NFP member outside the Park camp suggested she determined that she had nothing to gain personally from a free media and worried her relationship with Lee would be hurt if she criticized Kim Jae-chul directly. The same reasoning may have been a factor in the decision by her and other members of the NFP leadership to issue only pro forma calls for Justice Minister Kwon Jae-jin’s resignation over the Office of the Prime Minister civilian surveillance scandal, without pressing the issue further.

 

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