Moon Hee Sang has been elected chairman of the ruling Uri Party for its second phase. He benefited from the view that he was the inevitable choice in an April 2 party convention in which he was selected effortlessly and with no surprises. The people selected for the elected seats on the standing committee are not too inclined towards either pragmatism or reform programs, but in terms of the actual vote it was Moon and Yum Dong Yun who placed first and second, and both those men have stressed the need for pragmatism. It would appear that Moon succeeded in moving the hearts and minds of the party's membership with his diverse political experience, at a time when there is a lot of disappointment in the party's leadership, because the party won a majority in the National Assembly as a reaction to the attempt by the old establishment to remove the president through impeachment and yet still did not adequately use that majority.
Moon was one of the first secretaries at Cheong Wa Dae and has been considered a channel that conveys the desires of President Roh Moo Hyun to the party. Whether the months ahead will be smooth sailing for him will first become apparent in the extraordinary session of the National Assembly starting Wednesday and the April 30 Assembly makeup elections. The extraordinary Assembly session will have to deal with the problems between Korea and Japan that include Dokdo, the Assembly's response to the ever-drifting North Korean nuclear issue, and reform legislation such as the bill on inquiries into unanswered questions from recent history and revising the Private School Law. It is serious, then when at a press conference immediately following his selection as party chairman Moon mentioned the possibility of alternative legislation for the National Security Law (NSL). As we have noted on numerous occasions, the NSL is a relic of history that is inconsistent with the flow of the times. The reason the public security investigations division at the national public prosecutor's office decided not to file charges against novelist Jo Jeong Nae for his Taebaek Sanmaek ("The Taebak Mountains") and professor Choe Chang Jip for a book of his authorship is probably because prosecutors figured it would be hard to go against the larger current. Moon's premise was that there would have to be agreement between the ruling and opposition camps, but one worries that in doing so he is providing for the possibility that evil law of our times could remain around in an altered form.
Moon's campaign slogan was "The Politics of Unity." Whether talking about internal party politics or relations with other parties, there is one minimum of a principle that must be maintained when talking about unity. Popular sentiment will not tolerate having progress in reform breaking down and never even getting started all in the name of unity.
The Hankyoreh, 4 April 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] Concerns About Moon, Uri's New Chairman |
