Former Prime Minister Kim Min-seok said Wednesday that if elected party leader at the Aug. 17 national convention, he would establish an intraparty body the very next day to pursue unity and solidarity within the liberal camp and expand the party's reach toward the political center.
Kim made the pledge on the YouTube program "Humility Is Hard News Factory," saying, "We cannot win a general election without doing this."
"The Democratic Party has reunified after temporary splits, and we are already in alliance with the Progressive Party, the Basic Income Party and the Social Democratic Party," he said. "After taking power through the National Congress for New Politics, we formed the Millennium Democratic Party and brought in a large number of centrist and conservative figures — that was expansion. We need to do all three of these things at the same time."
Asked whether the Rebuilding Korea Party was a target for merger, Kim said, "That is for the Rebuilding Korea Party to decide," adding that when forces of the same political character join the Democratic Party — a major governing party — the process takes the form of full absorption.
He criticized the way former party leader Jung Chung-rae had pursued a merger with the Rebuilding Korea Party, saying Jung "botched it with a bombshell-style declaration." "It was overreach," Kim said. "That is why things got tangled up."
Kim also disclosed that he had once recommended author Yu Si-min for the post of prime minister.
"I never once thought about becoming prime minister myself," he said. "Someone asked me whether I had ever recommended author Yu Si-min for the position, and I told them yes."
On attacks from the pro-Jung faction over his absence from the vote to lift martial law, Kim again defended himself, saying he had been "one second late" to the vote.
Broadcaster Kim Ou-joon released CCTV footage from the National Assembly on the night of the martial law declaration, confirming that Kim had been present in the building at the time.
sunpine@heraldcorp.com
