[Editorial] Another president leaves his party

President Roh Moo-hyun has made it official: he’s going to leave the Uri Party. It will be the fourth time a ruling president has left a ruling party, after presidents Roh Tae-woo, Kim Young-sam, and Kim Dae-jung. The current president has always said that he was ready to leave if the party formally asked him to, so he has long expressed his willingness to do so. It has always been a question of timing.

This is, however, the wrong kind of tradition in that it goes directly in the face of bearing responsibility for your politics, a basic principle of modern democracy. Roh arrived in office in the name of a political party. The party and the president need to do their best, together, until his term is over, and then the party needs to be judged by the people on its performance the next time a presidential election comes around. It is very shortsighted and a form of political engineering for the ruling party to ask the president to leave because his approval ratings are low and having him around isn't going to be of help in the upcoming presidential election. How are political parties and democracy going to develop with thinking such as this?

There have been times when the opposition and the rest of the country welcomed a president leaving his party, namely when president Roh Tae-woo left the Democratic Liberal Party in 1992 and when president Kim Young-sam left the New Korea Party in November 1997. Those moves were welcomed because it was hoped that separating the ruling party from government affairs would help assure the government managed the election in a fair and neutral manner. Much of the concerns people used to have about election fairness have disappeared as a result of the progress the country has made in democratization. There is no longer a convincing reason for the president to leave the ruling party. It is a matter of party strategy, but the main opposition party is strongly opposed to the idea. All you can hope is that we will not see a repeat of such backward and irresponsible behavior in the future.

The problem is the one year remaining for Roh’s Participatory Government to be in office, an administration which now has no ruling party to bear responsibility for running the country. One can expect it will encounter many difficulties in carrying out policy. The end-of-term "lame duck" phenomenon might become even more serious. The largest party, the Grand Nationals (GNP), and the second largest, Uri, need to work together and with other parties to make sure the election at the end of this year runs smoothly and that the rest of the current government’s term ends with the proper closure. There are precedents for this, so we hope they pool their wisdom together and make it happen. If done right, the government and the president might have even more room to work in as the current presidential term comes to an end.

The role of the parties has become more important. The GNP, in particular, has more responsibility to bear. It should give criticism where criticism is due, but it should cooperate on matters when it is best for the country’s future. This will ultimately be one of the ways its ability to handle being in power is measured. One shouldn’t even need to mention the fact that Uri and the National Assembly members who have abandoned it need to think responsibly, as well.

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