hankyoreh

June 6. (Blue House photo pool)

By Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent, Seo Bo-mi and Lee You Ju-hyun, staff reporters

When the Saenuri Party's (NFP) “marketing the President” strategy entered full swing just before the June 4 municipal elections, the party and the Blue House began making fewer and fewer references to the April sinking of the Sewol ferry. Now, they appear to have stopped completely.

At first glance, the elections appear to have ended inconclusively, with no sign of voters siding clearly with either the ruling party or the opposition. But some are already asking if the ruling party has given up on the soul-searching and discussions it should be engaging in after the tragedy.

President Park Geun-hye has made two public statements since the election. In both of them, she emphasized her existing policy platform - and steps to “speed it along” - instead of any changes to her overall governance approach. Speaking on the morning of June 6 at a ceremony in Seoul National Cemetery to mark the 59th annual Memorial Day, Park announced plans to “set right the abnormal practices that have set root in South Korean society and hasten a major overhaul of the national safety management system and implementation of the three-year plan for economic innovation, including public sector reforms.”

Park also said she planned to “stoke the embers of our hard-won economic recovery, understanding that this could be the last time, and lead the South Korean economy to another leap forward that will give hope to the nation.”

With its references to future public sector reforms and boosting the economy - and its lack of references to the tragedy - the platform was more or less the same one she had been presenting before the Sewol sinking, the only addition being the part about safety management system renovations.

Park also reiterated her hard line on North Korea. Referring to the current deadlock in inter-Korean relations, Park said, “If the North Korean regime truly wants economic development and improvements to its people’s lives, it first needs to abandon its nuclear development and the threat of provocations.”

Park also emphasized the economic and public sector reforms the afternoon before, speaking at a luncheon at the invitation of people of national merit.

“I intend to pursue all of my governance reform tasks, including a recovery of economic vitality, with a greater sense of urgency,” Park said at the luncheon, adding that she planned to “hasten implementation of the three-year economic innovation plan, which includes public sector reforms, and breathe new innovation into public officialdom.”

As the election neared, the Saenuri Party had shown signs of nerves, with its “one-person demonstrations” and appeals to “wipe the president’s tears”. Signs now suggest its members are already breathing a collective sigh of relief over the election outcome and leaving their Sewol woes behind to focus on the July 14 party convention and the July 30 by-election, which is being called a “mini-general election.” The “tough love” approach it seemed to adopt with the Blue House in the wake of the sinking, with its calls for a full-scale personnel overhaul, had seemingly evaporated just a day after voting.

Some observers within the ruling party are voicing concern.

“The election results were a warning to politicians on both sides,” said one fourth-term lawmaker from the greater Seoul area on condition of anonymity.

“If the Blue House gets complacent, and the ruling party can’t talk straight with the Blue House like before, then there will be a judgment from the public that it won’t come back from,” the lawmaker said.

Another second-term lawmaker from Gyeonggi Province agreed that the election results “shouldn’t be misinterpreted.”

“The opposition swept the 20 district head positions in Seoul, and we lost the Chungcheong provinces, which backed us during the presidential election,” the lawmaker said.

“We need to demand intensive personnel changes from the Blue House, and we need to be more thorough than the opposition with the Sewol parliamentary inquiry,” the lawmaker advised.

The administration and ruling party’s commitment to the reforms it pledged before the elections can be measured on a handful of key issues: the parliamentary inquiry into the Sewol sinking, the details of the personnel reports announced by Park, and the handling of KBS president Gil Hwan-young’s resignation and appointment of a successor. One focus could be Park’s handling of Chief of Staff Kim Kim-choon, whose departure is seen as a given in the wake of Ahn Dae-hee’s withdrawal as a nominee for Prime Minister.

The opposition appears to have these areas in its sights.

“Now that the election’s over, it’s still very important to see whether the ruling party is sincerely committed to investigating the Sewol tragedy and preventing similar accidents,” said Park Young-sun, the floor leader for the New Politics Alliance for Democracy.

“The key questions are how hard the ruling party is going to work on the special parliamentary investigation committee, and what kind of things it’s going to want in the Sewol special legislation,” Park added.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]