[Politics That Day] Did Jeong Dong-yeong and Roh Hoe-chan Belong to the Same Negotiation Group?

Democratic Peace Party-Justice Party, Agreement on Joint Negotiation Group
Two Years After the General Election...A Clever Political Alliance, Not a Merger
Sad News of Roh Hoe-chan, Losing Negotiation Group Status After 4 Months

Editor's Note"Politics on That Day" is a series planning corner that looks back on Korean politics through the "recollection of memories" related to notable scenes, events, and figures.

How many people remember the existence of the "Assembly Members' Group for Peace and Justice," which held the casting vote in Korean politics? Not from a distant past, but just five years ago, it was a name that marked one axis of Korean politics. They were not just a friendly gathering of assembly members. They were one of the parliamentary negotiation groups.

Currently, parliamentary negotiation groups are those with more than 20 seats in the National Assembly, like the People Power Party and the Democratic Party of Korea, and are legally guaranteed certain rights. An interesting point is that the Assembly Members' Group for Peace and Justice was a coalition formed by politicians Jeong Dong-young and Roh Hoe-chan.

Politician Jeong Dong-young built his political base mainly in Honam, centered around Jeonju, Jeonbuk. Politician Roh Hoe-chan, along with politician Shim Sang-jung, symbolized progressive politics. The scene where they declared they would walk the same political path.

Jang Byung-wan, floor leader of the Democratic Peace Party, and Roh Hoe-chan, floor leader of the Justice Party, are meeting and greeting each other at the National Assembly on March 20, 2018. The two parties agreed to form a joint negotiation group in the assembly. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

On April 2, 2018, the leadership of the Party for Democracy and Peace and the Justice Party held the first meeting of the Assembly Members' Group for Peace and Justice and joined hands. Their united appearance is a scene worthy of being recorded in history. Politicians Jeong Dong-young, Roh Hoe-chan, Shim Sang-jung, Lee Jeong-mi, Cho Bae-sook, Kim Kyung-jin, and Kim Jong-dae, representing a wide political spectrum, came together as a single formation.

They later went their separate ways. Politician Cho Bae-sook ran as a People Power Party candidate in last year's Jeonbuk gubernatorial election. Politician Kim Kyung-jin participated in Yoon Seok-yeol's presidential campaign and played a leading role in making Yoon Seok-yeol president. Politicians Shim Sang-jung and Lee Jeong-mi remain symbolic figures actively working in the Justice Party.

The reason they could join hands is deeply related to the political situation at the time. April 2018 was two years after the 20th general election held in 2016. The voter tendencies for the Party for Democracy and Peace and the Justice Party were clearly different.

For two such parties to join hands two years after the general election was a politically burdensome act. They proposed eight policy cooperation tasks for the sake of the joint negotiation group, including realizing peace on the Korean Peninsula, constitutional amendment and electoral reform, and a labor-respecting society.

Democratic Peace Party leader Jeong Dong-young visited the office of candidate Yeo Young-guk in Seongsan-gu, Changwon-si, Gyeongnam, on the afternoon of March 28, 2019, and held hands with candidate Yeo, shouting "Fighting." [Image source=Yonhap News]

However, it is more reasonable to see this as a political alliance rather than a policy alliance, more precisely, an alliance for political utilization. If the intersection of party identities had been larger and broader, they would have gone through a merger process, but the Party for Democracy and Peace and the Justice Party chose to maintain their parties while forming a joint negotiation group.

Through the coalition of 14 seats from the Party for Democracy and Peace and 6 seats from the Justice Party, they succeeded in meeting the 20-seat minimum for a parliamentary negotiation group, but from the start, it was a continuous tightrope walk. There was an inherent limitation that if the 20-seat foundation collapsed, the negotiation group could not be maintained.

Members of the Assembly Members' Group for Peace and Justice could neither leave their parties nor give up their assembly seats for other elections. They had to maintain 20 seats and recruit additional independent members to ease the precarious negotiation group formation.

So, what was the fundamental reason two parties with different political lines created a joint negotiation group? Becoming a parliamentary negotiation group vertically increases their speaking power in ruling and opposition discussions.

They also get more space allocated in the National Assembly and can expect to be assigned standing committee chairpersons. They can clearly voice their opinions in the distribution of standing committee members. In other words, the political benefits are substantial.

On the morning of April 19, 2018, at Sejong Hall in the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Seoul, the floor leaders of the four negotiating groups in the National Assembly gathered for a commemorative photo just before the debate at the constitutional amendment discussion hosted by the Korea Broadcast Reporters Club. From the left, Woo Won-shik, floor leader of the Democratic Party of Korea; Kim Sung-tae, floor leader of the Liberty Korea Party; Kim Dong-chul, floor leader of the Bareunmirae Party; and Noh Hoe-chan, floor leader of the 'Peace and Justice Caucus'. Photo by the National Assembly Press Photographers Group

Although the Party for Democracy and Peace and the Justice Party assumed they could withdraw from the joint negotiation group at any time, they set a restriction that they must notify the other party one month in advance. Unless something special happened, the agreement was to work together through the second half of the 20th National Assembly from 2018 to 2020.

With the birth of the Assembly Members' Group for Peace and Justice, the National Assembly became a system where four negotiation groups coexisted: the Democratic Party of Korea, the Liberty Korea Party, the Bareunmirae Party, and the joint group. Having four negotiation groups is an unusual scene considering the political reality since the Sam-Kim era of the 1980s.

While this strengthens the dynamism of politics, it also makes ruling and opposition consensus more difficult. The process of consolidating the demands of various parties to create solutions inevitably becomes more complex.

Then, was the "silent promise" to keep their original intention, the pledge of the Party for Democracy and Peace and the Justice Party, kept?

The sudden sad news of Assembly Member Roh Hoe-chan, the inaugural representative of the Assembly Members' Group for Peace and Justice, halted the political experiment of the joint negotiation group. Roh Hoe-chan, then floor leader of the Justice Party, passed away on July 23, 2018. The shockwave spread beyond the Justice Party to the Yeouido political circle. The basic framework of National Assembly discussions changed.

The Assembly Members' Group for Peace and Justice fell below the 20-member minimum required for a negotiation group and ultimately lost its status as a joint negotiation group.