Can the ruling party really win back the center? – Korea JoongAng Daily

Columns
The ruling party’s bid to build a broader coalition will ring hollow unless it addresses distrust over judicial independence and presidential protections.
Lee Hyun-sang
The author is a columnist at the JoongAng Ilbo. 

The Democratic Party’s (DP) workshop saw a clash between party leader Kim Min-seok and former leader Jung Chung-rae. Kim called Jung a leading advocate of the view that “there is no political center.” Jung shot back, calling Kim’s behavior a “rude dictatorship by microphone.” In religion, heretics are often hated more than infidels. The ideological conflict between the two will not easily disappear.
The DP hard-liners’ strategy of rallying the base is narrow and rigid. But it is questionable whether Kim’s counterproposal — building a “structural majority” by expanding the party’s reach — has substance. Kim said that the DP must strengthen internal unity while recruiting individuals from progressive, reformist, centrist and conservative camps. That presumably explains why figures from the Basic Income Party and Rebuilding Korea Party were included in Sunday’s Cabinet reshuffle and Blue House reorganization.
But expanding the DP’s reach ultimately requires recruiting centrists and conservatives, not more progressives. Gathering people of similar colors only deepens the same shade. Can the party even attract centrists, let alone conservatives? And would recruiting a handful actually broaden its politics? More fundamentally, does Kim’s idea of the center contain the values of a rational political middle?
At his first public Supreme Council meeting since taking office in Busan on Aug. 19, Kim opened by attacking the judiciary. He was dismissive toward Chief Justice Jo Hee-de and pressured him to resign. Although declining approval ratings have slowed the push, the DP still floats dropping prosecutions because “fabricated indictments” must be corrected. It talks about expanding toward the center while acting to shield its own.
Approval ratings for both the president and DP continue to fall. At the heart of the trouble is centrist distrust that political power is arbitrarily reshaping state institutions and the legal system. There is suspicion that separation of powers and judicial and investigative systems are being shaken to protect the incumbent president and exact revenge on his predecessor. But the ruling bloc seems intent on changing its tires “for centrists” rather than repairing the engine.
The Blue House rejected Chief Justice Jo’s recommendation of Judge Son Bong-gi for the Supreme Court and demanded an unprecedented second recommendation — a procedure not explicitly provided for by the Constitution or law. The DP went further, pressing the judiciary to choose again from the original three candidates. That amounts to demanding the nomination of Judge Kim Min-ki, reportedly favored by the Blue House. If so, it could be more honest to delete “upon the recommendation of the Chief Justice” from Article 104 of the Constitution, which stipulates how Supreme Court justices are appointed.
Successful political expansion has historically emerged from desperation that the party would otherwise collapse. Kim Young-sam’s recruitment of former democracy activists, the alliance between Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-pil and Park Geun-hye’s recruitment of Kim Chong-in are examples. Today’s ruling bloc, armed with an overwhelming parliamentary majority, shows no such urgency.
Instead, it has collected figures with ethical baggage like trophies, sometimes producing the opposite effect. It also does not provide recruits room to speak independently. When Lee Suk-yeon, the chair of the Presidential Committee for National Cohesion and a former official in the Lee Myung-bak administration, said that Lee Jae Myung should leave the DP to become “president for everyone,” party members ridiculed him. Recruits are praised as symbols of inclusion until they criticize the party’s effort to shield the president, at which point they are treated as outsiders.
If outreach to the center is to become more than a slogan, the ruling party must first stop its excessive campaign to eliminate the president’s judicial risks rather than search for outsiders to recruit.
But Sunday’s reshuffle nominated a figure who stood at the forefront of campaigns for the complete separation of prosecutors from investigations and for dropping prosecutions as justice minister. At this point, Kim Min-seok’s “structural majority” theory raises questions not only about whether it can work but about its true purpose. A rebound in approval ratings seems far away.
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