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Jin Joon-kwon(*):

"From today, the DLP is no more!"

Today's K.Times reported that the..

..Troubled DLP Leader Resigns
 

In a move that is expected to accelerate a breakup of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), the party's head stepped down Monday taking responsibility for failing to revamp the party suffering an internal rift.

Rep. Sim Sang-jeong, who temporarily led the party on behalf of the party leadership, resigned as chairwoman of the party's emergency committee over the rejection of the party reform plan during a national convention a day earlier.

As the party failed to settle disputes and narrow the opinion gap in the convention, which party members called the last chance to retain the party, the minority party will likely face a split soon.

``Yesterday, we witnessed that obsolete rules still control the party. I apologize for having failed to meet the demand from the public for party reform and I think I should take the responsibility,'' Sim told reporters at the National Assembly.

Some party members, who shared a sense of need for party reform, are moving to leave the party.

A major bone of contention for the party was whether or not to deprive people engaged in pro-Pyongyang activities of their party membership as part of efforts to shed its North Korea-friendly image.

Mainstreamers within the party, which is more critical toward the United States and favorable toward the North, opposed the plan, while the smaller faction, called the equalitarian group, insisted that the reform is a necessary sacrifice for the party to regain public trust.

In Sunday's convention, 553 of 862 party delegates voted against the reform plan which would have deprived former Vice Secretary-General Choi Ki-young and former Supreme Council member Lee Jung-hoon of their party membership.

The two figures, known as members of the pro-Pyongyang group Ilsimhoe within the party, allegedly met North Korean spies and leaked information on the DLP to North Korea on a regular basis.

Twenty-three members of the smaller faction already left the party and more officials are expected to follow suit over dissatisfaction at the rejection of the reform plan.

Sim and Rep. Roh Hoe-chan are also considering quitting the party soon, party sources said.

Deserters plan create a new progressive party which can complement insufficiency that has haunted the DLP founded eights years ago, party sources said.

Following her resignation, Rep. Chun Young-se, the only Supreme Council member remaining in the party, will lead the party until new leaders are elected.

Conflicts between the two factions surfaced after DLP candidate Kwon Young-ghil was defeated in December's presidential election with three percent of the vote, even lower than that he received in his second run four years ago and that of independent Lee Hoi-chang.

The party's popularity also plunged to a single digits from 13 percent.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/02/113_18469.html

Related: 

☞ Labor party crisis deepens (K. Herald, 2.04)

☞ DLP’s ideological feud splitting group (JoongAng Ilbo, 2.05)

* Jin Joon-kwon is a "well known" columnist and culture critic who left the DLP in 2002