[Editorial] GNP Needs Overhaul with New Leadership.

For the Grand National Party (GNP), the way has become clear to resolve the current crisis and also to be born again: it must recast itself with new faces. Although Chairman Choe Byung-yul has accepted the advice from the party’s nomination committee for the legislature candidates against his run in the elections, nobody believes this alone will be enough for the GNP to escape the current crisis. Twenty first-time and second-time legislators of the party have begun to call for Choe’s resignation. Some party stalwarts have begun to join forces with them. There should be no reason for hesitating, then.

What’s at the core of this crisis must be understood. In sum, it is the common conception that they can’t go on if Choe continues on. One leading GNP member from the southeastern region said, “What’s the difference between Chairman Choe, who has served multiple terms as a legislator since the Fifth Republic and us who have already declared our ‘no runs’ in the elections.” When the chairman of a party is treated as the relic of the past who can be self-confident not just about the elections but also about the party’s future?

Somebody should be held for responsible for the falling popularity of the party in opinion polls, which are hovering below the 20s, compared to about 40 percent last fall. Choe must explain why his own rating is lower than that of the party. He cannot explain it away by passing the blame to his predecessor Lee Hoi-chang.

It is the widespread understanding that the committee’s advice for him against a run in the election is a benign way of saying that it would not nominate him as legislative candidate. There is little a chairman, who has failed to get party nomination, can do in the elections. What appeal will he have even if he travels across the country to woo voters? The activities of GNP will center on the election headquarters late this month. If a new face heads the headquarters and innovates the party, it will offer Choe a chance to step aside.

“Since there is no other party but the GNP that can lead the country with a sense of stability,” Choe said during a luncheon meeting with Daegu city council members, “if we have the situation in hand, they will support the GNP for lack of an alternative.” This is indeed an idle understanding of the state of affairs.

It is true that almost half of the voters, or 46.59 percent, supported GNP candidate Lee in the last presidential elections. It is not wrong to conclude that he attracts a reasonable and sound conservative constituency whom feel lost for lack of an alternative. If the GNP must change before they can support the party then Choe must answer. This is the least he can do for the party’s constituencies.