| President Park Geun-hye holds a meeting with her secretaries at Cheong Wa Dae, Monday. / Joint press corps |
By Kang Seung-woo
Some confidants of President Park Geun-hye have been ruled out of the ruling Saenuri Party's nominations for the upcoming April 13 general election as public sentiment is worsening toward her alleged meddling.
The nomination results reflect growing worries inside the ruling party about a possible negative impact Park's increasing political activities may have on voter sentiment.
Earlier this month, President Park visited Daegu and Busan, creating a controversy over alleged interference in the election; but Cheong Wa Dae said her trips were related to economic issues, not politics.
According to the party Sunday, Cho Yoon-sun, a former senior presidential secretary for political affairs who was the Park administration's first gender minister, and Rep. Kim Jae-won, a close aide to President Park, lost their respective primaries.
In addition, Yoon Doo-hyun, a former chief presidential secretary for public affairs, had his bid for a parliamentary seat dashed after being defeated in an intra-party primary in Daegu ― President Park's political stronghold.
Their defeats are viewed as quite serious within the party because they were high-profile pro-Park candidates, highly expected to survive the primaries. Along with them, two former chiefs of the presidential press center, and a few candidates loyal to the President did not win candidacies in North and South Gyeongsang provinces as well as Busan, where Park's influence is high.
"It seems that negative reaction to those only promoting their ties with President Park, and Cheong Wa Dae's alleged intervention in the nominations, is increasing even on our home turf," said a party official.
The Saenuri Party's nomination process was lopsided on nominating pro-Park candidates for the general election from the beginning, while seeking to exclude former floor leader Yoo Seong-min and other mainstreamers from becoming candidates in the election.
In June last year, Yoo and Park locked horns over a revision to the National Assembly Law, designed to empower parliament to challenge government ordinances. At that time, Park bashed Yoo, openly calling him a "traitor," leading him to step down after a standoff. Yoo was Park's former chief of staff, when she was a lawmaker.
The ruling party is worried that the negative sentiment toward the nominations may stretch to voters in the capital area and adversely affect the election results there.
According to a public survey by local pollster Realmeter, Monday, the Saenuri Party's approval rating in the capital area dropped by 12.6 percentage points from a week ago _ 49.6 percent to 37 percent. The combined rating of the opposition bloc _ the Minjoo Party of Korea, the People's Party and the Justice Party _ was 52 percent, a 2.2 percentage gain.
"While the brouhaha about the nomination was taking place last week, we had trouble in appealing to voters for support in the elections," said Rep. Kim Yong-tae, whose constituency is in Yangcheon, Seoul.
"The pro-Park faction-led nominations are stimulating public disgust."
Rep. Chung Doo-un, pursuing his fourth parliamentary term in Seoul's Seodaemun district, also said, "The party is on its way to securing less than the 17 seats in Seoul won in the 2012 general election."
Political analysts said the losses of the pro-Park candidates in primaries were expected outcomes.
"The defeats show the public's disgust at the ruling party's nomination process because they were less competitive, but just focused on promoting their relationship with President Park without any effort to appeal to the public," said Hangil Research Director Hong Hyeong-sik.
"The nomination committee had put up former Home Affairs Minister Chong Jong-sup in a district in Daegu without a primary and selected another constituency of the city, in which it will put up a female candidate, dropping three-term non-Park faction lawmaker Joo Ho-young, based on its estimations that pro-Park candidates would have been defeated if primaries had been held."