User:Tyrannus Mundi/Saenuri Party

The Saenuri Party or New Frontier Party (Korean: 새누리당, Saenuri-dang, "New World Party"; abbreviated NFP) is a right-leaning political party in South Korea. Until 13 February 2012, it was known as the Grand National Party (Korean: 한나라당, Hannara-dang). It comprises the incumbent administration of South Korea, with President Lee Myung-bak being one of its members, and since the 2008 parliamentary elections it has held a majority of seats in the National Assembly, renewed in 2012.

History

Predecessor parties

The historical roots of Saenuri can be traced to the Democratic Republican Party established by Park Chung-hee and Kim Jong-pil in 1963. This party was strongly oriented towards a policy of chaebol-supported developmentalism. The party itself provided the basis for political mobilization under the authoritarian Park regime. Particularly after the promulgation of the Yushin Constitution in 1972, the party acquired aspects of a single-party system, but Park's reliance upon it declined in the closing period of his administration. The party's legitimacy was eroded further in the wake of the 1978 parliamentary elections, where despite winning a plurality of seats, the party suffered a humiliating loss to the opposition New Democratic Party in terms of the number of votes it attained. Following Park's assassination and the Coup d'état of December Twelfth, the DRP was finally dissolved along with all other political parties by the new president, Chun Doo-hwan, on 17 October 1980.

After an intervening period of three months, the DRP was replaced as the party of government by Chun with the Democratic Justice Party, which assumed the DRP's political apparatus and is thus regarded as its direct successor. The DJP continued many of the broader, systemic social and economic policies that had been established under Park, perpetuating for example the Five-Year Plans, while moving the political system in a more liberal direction and refocusing economic policy from heavy and chemical industries to light industries and consumer goods. This period of DJP rule saw the rise of a powerful opposition in the form of the Gwangju Democratization Movement through the 1980s, and the internal fragmentation of the South Korean right wing with the foundation of the New Democratic Republican Party by Kim Jong-pil in 1988, but the party's dominance continued as democratization proceeded under the presidency of Roh Tae-woo.

In 1991, a significant development occurred with the unification of the DJP, the New Democratic Republican Party, and the centrist Democratic Reunification Party of former opposition leader Kim Young-sam into the Democratic Liberal Party, a more broad-based party modeled explicitly on the Japanese Liberal Democrats as a new natural party of government. In 1992, Kim Jong-pil again broke with the established party, forming the United Liberal Democrats, leaving Kim Young-sam himself to succeed Roh as president in 1993, reinforcing the new party's reformed policy direction. This new character was dramatically demonstrated when Kim ordered the arrest of Chun and Roh on charges of military rebellion, subversion, and corruption, and granted amnesty to thousands of political prisoners who had been detained by the DRP–DJP regimes. In February 1996, the party was renamed the "New Korea Party".

Formation of the Grand National Party

Throughout 1996–7, escalating political dissatisfaction was followed by the unfolding of an intense systemic economic crisis that became known as the Asian Financial Crisis. This series of events challenged established conceptions of politics in South Korea. In the legislative elections of 1996, the New Korea Party lost its majority of seats. In mid-January 1996, the Hanbo Group, a major chaebol, was declared bankrupt, and an ever-widening network of state officials was implicated in the growing "Hanbogate" scandal that ensued. In this climate of political crisis, Kim Young-sam attempted a complete replacement of large sections of his administrative team, but facing growing unpopularity he resigned the party leadership in September 1997. In July, Lee Hoi-chang had been selected as the party's nominee in the upcoming presidential elections, and at this juncture he took over as the party's leader. Rhee In-je, Lee's competitor for the nomination and a popular politician in his own right, seceded from the party and established the New People Party, contributing to the growing regime crisis.

The formation of the Grand National Party was a result of the unexpected decision at this stage of Cho Soon, leader of the Democratic Party, to merge his party with the NKP. The Democratic Party had for a long time been the primary opposition force to the DRP and its successors, but it had suffered with the secession of Kim Dae-jung, who had created the National Congress of New Politics and rapidly eclipsed the DP in its former role. The new party, the GNP, was established on 21 November 1997, but went on to lose the ensuing presidential election, putting the DRP's successor party out of power for the first time.

Crisis of 2011–2012 and renaming

Control of the GNP was handed over to an Emergency Response Commission led by Park Geun-hye.

Policy

Saenuri has inherited the Grand National Party's conventional association with support for free trade and neoliberalism, along with a pro-American foreign policy and social conservatism.

Economy

Under the Lee Myung-bak administration, the GNP undertook a neoliberal programme of economic deregulation.

A particularly controversial economic program of the party was the Four Major Rivers Project, announced in 2009 and declared complete in October 2011.

Social issues

The party leadership has also supported a policy of multiculturalism, and in 2012 a Saenuri candidate, Jasmine B. Lee, became the first naturalized legislator in the National Assembly.

Foreign and defense policy

In contrast to the Democrats' traditionally more conciliatory approach to North Korea, demonstrated most notably in the Kim Dae-jung's "Sunshine Policy", the GNP and Saenuri have pursued a more confrontational policy, particularly in the wake of incidents such as the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan and the bombardment of Yeonpyeong, both in 2010.