Roundup: Splinter S.Korean conservative party expects reunited supporters after impeachment conclusion

One of two presidential hopefuls affiliated with a new South Korean conservative party, which splintered away from the ruling Saenuri Party, said Friday that conservative supporters will be reunited after the constitutional court reaches a conclusion on the motion to impeach President Park Geun-hye.

Rep. Yoo Seong-min of the Righteous Party, which broke away from the governing party following the passage of the impeachment motion on Dec. 9, told foreign correspondents in Seoul that after the court upholds or rejects it, conservative voters will make efforts to reunite the divided support for the conservative bloc.

The Righteous Party was created on Jan. 24 as it drew a clear line from the ruling party, which decided to change its name into the Liberty Korea Party, casting votes in favor of the impeachment of President Park for a corruption scandal.

The overwhelming passage confirmed a rare division in the conservative camp, eventually leading to the division on the streets among conservative voters over whether to permanently remove Park from office or not.

Candlelit rallies have been held since late October to demand an immediate resignation, and later impeachment, of President Park. Following the parliamentary passage of the impeachment bill, conservative elderly voters began to stage pro-Park rallies on the streets, calling for the rejection of the motion by the constitutional court.

According to opinion polls, nearly 80 percent of South Koreans have demanded Park's impeachment over the past two months, but 13-15 percent, most of them those in their 60s or older who admire Park's father, former military strongman Park Chung-hee, clamor for the reinstatement of the impeached leader.

Reflecting the peak in disenchantment with the Park-led government, approval scores for conservative politicians tumbled, with support for Righteous Party presidential contenders, including Yoo, hovering at the low single digits.

Yoo said support for presidential hopefuls of the main opposition Minjoo Party, which reaches nearly 70 percent in all, reflects disappointment at the conservative governments in the past 10 years as well as the scandal that led to the presidential impeachment.

The four-term lawmaker forecast that conservative voters would be reunited if the constitutional court makes the ruling on the impeachment, which has divided conservative voters.

In some of recent surveys, almost a quarter of respondents expressed no support for any party and any politician, which raises expectations that some of so-called "shy" conservative voters have yet to decide what party and who would be the best hope in the conservative bloc.

Yoo is former chief of staff of President Park for 10 months in 2005 when she was the chair of the Grand National Party, the predecessor of the ruling party, but he is one of main figures who led the new conservative party and advocated the impeachment passage in the parliament.

The expert on economics has been described as a politician who is conservative in national security but liberal in economic affairs.

Yoo maintained his longtime support for the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system to South Korea, saying it is aimed to protect against what he claimed were nuclear missile threats from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Seoul and Washington unilaterally agreed in July last year to install one THAAD battery in southeast South Korea by the end of this year.

It sparked strong oppositions from China and Russia as its X-band radar can peer deep into territories of the two countries. The unilateral decision also caused objections from residents and opposition lawmakers as it was made without public and parliamentary consensus.

Doubts remained about the operability of the U.S. anti-missile system on the Korean Peninsula given that most of DPRK missiles targeting South Korea travel at an altitude of less than 40 km. THAAD is designed to shoot down incoming missiles at an altitude of 40-150km.

THAAD in southeast South Korea is incapable of defending capital Seoul and its surrounding metropolitan areas, which have about half of the country's 50 million population.

Here in South Korea, many of conservative politicians tend to fall into temptation of politicizing security issues by exaggerating DPRK threats. Escalated tensions between the two Koreas, whether those were formed intentionally or not, tended to grant election victories to the conservative camp.

Asked about it, Yoo said the THAAD has nothing to do with the politicization of security. He noted the trajectories of Rodong and Scud missiles, which were test-fired by the DPRK in recent years, flew at an altitude of 130-150 km that is within the intercepting range of THAAD.

However, experts opposing the THAAD deployment have claimed that those test-launches were aimed at testing the capability of missiles and that there is no reason for the DPRK to fire those medium- and short-range missiles at a high altitude as it takes much more time and raises possibility for being intercepted. Enditem