Still bent on internal battles, with no vision

Without waking themselves up, the party cannot recover the public trust it lost long ago.

The governing People Power Party (PPP) is stuck in a strange mud fight with less than three weeks left before the national convention to elect its new leadership. It was triggered by a text message first lady Kim Keon-hee allegedly sent to then-PPP interim leader Han Dong-hoon. In the Telegram message, she conveyed her intention “to accept any penalties, including a public apology,” over her suspicious acceptance of a luxury handbag from a mysterious pastor. But Han didn’t reply to the message even after reading it, according to a news report. President Yoon Suk Yeol was reportedly enraged and demanded Han’s resignation from the post in January — with less than three months left before the April 10 parliamentary elections.

After the news went viral, candidates for the PPP leadership strongly attacked Han for “showing a lack of human courtesy” and “making a misjudgment from his lack of political experiences.” But Han, former justice minister, refuted such claims, saying he understood the message as an expression of her reluctance to apologize for some reason. He insisted that he kept delivering the message to the presidential office that she must apologize for that.

The truth is yet to be found, but suspicions still linger. First, why did the first lady ask for Han’s opinion about the episode even though it had nothing to do with him? If Yoon’s aides agreed on the need for apology, the first lady could just apologize. Another question is why did the first lady send such a text to Han at that time? Does it mean she couldn’t apologize because Han didn’t reply?

The timing — and background — of the text messages also look suspicious. Only the first lady and Han know exactly what messages went back and forth between them, but why is the alleged conversation being exploited for internal attacks? The Han camp suspects that the presidential office has again intervened in the leadership race, but no one knows the truth. Whatever the case, we are dumbfounded at the strange leak of secret messages.

The PPP, a minority in the National Assembly, should have a heated debate over how to rebuild the lethargic conservative front. But its members are bent on exchanging negative comments between themselves. The governing party faces an uphill battle to restore public support for the conservative party, devise policies to draw the votes from the swing voters and find a strategy to end its old image.

But the PPP is still engrossed in internal battles. Voters don’t know what visions the candidates have before the July 23 convention. People wonder if they have such visions anyway. Without waking themselves up, the party cannot recover the public trust it lost long ago.