The Marmot’s Hole

I see that the Grand National Party’s new chairman has decided to start his tenure with a quixotic attempt to win a by-election in Jeolla-do (KTimes):

Ranking officials of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) have been traveling to South Cholla Province, a political stronghold of the minor opposition Democratic Party (DP), to garner support ahead of the Oct. 25 by-elections.

Kang Jae-sup, chairman of the GNP, yesterday attended a funeral service for the late Hong Nam-soon, one of the country’s renowned human rights lawyers, in Kwangju.

Interestingly, the Uri party has not even bothered to nominate people for local races in the region:

Meanwhile, the governing Uri Party has nominated Park Yang-soo, a former lawmaker, for the Assembly by-election in Haenam-Chindo, but decided to give up two local administration chief posts in the province.

The Uri Party has decided not to make unnecessary trouble with the DP in those two constituencies in consideration of possible future alliance between the two parties, sources at the governing party said.

Of course, the fact that they had no chance of winning might have also had something to do with their decision.  If Uri had decided to be nice to the Democrats back in last spring’s local elections, the gesture might have had some meaning.  It certainly makes no sense to have Korea’s three left-wing parties beating each other up while the GNP continues to out-poll all of them combined. 

But with Uri wounded as badly as it is, the gesture might be too little, too late.  The Democrats are sitting pretty in their electoral fortress and can afford to wait for Uri’s eventual implosion.