[Editorial] Deflecting responsibility for referendum defeat

[한겨레] The Grand National Party (GNP) and government of Seoul's behavior in the wake of Wednesday's referendum on free school lunches has been a sight to behold. Both have offered only self-serving interpretations of the referendum outcome, while ignoring the public sentiments it confirmed. The seriousness of the issue lies in the way these arguments have gone beyond mere self-consoling bluster and are getting in the way of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education's (SMOE) current plans for expanding free school lunches.

GNP Chairman Hong Joon-pyo's claim that the referendum was essentially a victory for Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon was seriously misleading logic. His remarks have already become a laughing stock, with Internet users issuing a flood of parodies such as "the South Korean football team's 3-0 loss to Japan was essentially a victory" or "Muammar Gaddafi was essentially victorious in Libya."

Yet GNP spokesman Kim Ki-hyun blew up yesterday when a journalist called the outcome a rout, saying, "Tell me on what grounds you call it a rout."

This kind of attitude smacks strongly of a defensive attempt to dodge claims that the party leadership was responsible for the defeat. But it is severely problematic in the way it ignores the citizen desires for expanded welfare services and an active role by the state that were expressed through the voting results.

The attitude coming from the city of Seoul has been even worse. On the issue of budget support for free school lunches, city spokesman Lee Jong-hyun said, "The failure to meet the required voting rate means nothing was decided."

Lee also said the city would be awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on a suit requesting the cancellation of the ordinance for free school lunch support. SMOE is currently making plans for a stepwise expansion of free school lunches, extending them to fifth and sixth graders as of the second semester of 2011, but now the future appears uncertain in light of the city's antics.

While the SMOE and opposition parties did initially argue that the free school lunch issue should not be the subject of a referendum because the case was still pending, the city did not even pretend to listen. Now the same city is going on about awaiting a Supreme Court ruling. One wonders just what its goal was in pushing a referendum in the first place.

Now that the city is refusing budgetary support in spite of the referendum result, Oh Se-hoon's resignation as mayor is all the more urgent. So long as it remains unclear who the next mayor will be, the plans for implementing free school lunches will remain adrift. But Oh has been extremely noncommittal about the resignation issue.

A city spokesperson said it was "important to have agreement from the heads of the 48 party member councils," and Oh himself was reported as saying at a meeting of the ruling party leadership that he would "abide by the party's decision on the resignation timeline."

When he previously was staking his mayorship on the referendum outcome, he did not even consult with the GNP. It is absurd that he is dragging his feet now with talk about "discussing the matter with the party."

It is time for Oh to accept the referendum outcome and make a prompt return to the private sector. We hope that in so doing, he will have time to look back and reflect humbly on his behavior. This is the only way for him to even modestly increase his chances of a political comeback.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]

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[Editorial] Deflecting responsibility for referendum defeat