The tug-of-war between the ruling Saenuri Party leader and the nomination committee chief is escalating into an all-out factional battle, with neither side budging over the list of candidates for the general election next month.

Thursday morning’s Supreme Council meeting was monopolized by members loyal to President Park Geun-hye discussing the remaining nomination processes. The meeting had convened despite being called off by chairman Rep. Kim Moo-sung a day earlier in protest against the “unjust and top-down” decisions by the nomination committee chaired by pro-Park Rep. Lee Hahn-koo.

Kim, who leads the pack of members critical of the pro-Park group, has been openly disgruntled by the nomination picks, which are favorable toward Park loyalists.

Kim has been inveighing against Lee for abusing his power to make unilateral choices in favor of pro-Park members instead of people he described as “well-performing and renowned” incumbents, such as Rep. Lee Jae-oh.

He has also taken issue with what the nomination committee has called “strategic choices” in some of the constituencies that bypass internal primaries. Bottom-up selection of candidates through primaries and opinion polls have been among Kim’s key initiatives throughout his leadership since 2014. He has been strictly against resorting to the “strategic” nominations that have often been conducted in the past. The primaries were considered the only alternative for Kim to hold sway in the party, which is dependent on Park and her solid voter support.

Sparking the all-out confrontation was Wednesday’s Supreme Council meeting, which Kim adjourned as the members butted heads over the remaining nominations. He also held a press conference in the afternoon, slamming Lee Hahn-koo for making poor choices and sidestepping due process.

Lee called Kim’s remarks “stupid,” and pro-Park members including floor leader Rep. Won Yoo-chul demanded the next day that Kim apologize for his behavior that they said violated the nomination committee’s right to autonomy.

Immediately, Kim retorted that there was “nothing to apologize for.” He then called a closed-door meeting with members of his faction and said it was the duty of the party chairman to uphold the party constitution and regulations. Kim only laughed when asked by the press if he would consider refusing to put his chairman’s stamp on the final nomination list, the last formal procedure required in nominations.

Some other non-Park members also spoke out against the nomination committee. The committee meeting in the afternoon was suspended as some of members walked out in protest of chairman Kim’s remarks against them, demanding an apology. One of the non-Park members, Rep. Chin Young announced he would leave the party and said he was contemplating running as an independent.

“Chairman Lee is acting as if he is the law, completely ignoring the nomination rules,” said Rep. Cho Hae-jin, who was dropped from the nominations.

The confrontation among Kim, Lee and their cohorts was widely anticipated from the beginning. Kim had opposed Lee to head the nomination committee last month, but was pressured to accept the choice, which was strongly backed by the pro-Park members at the Supreme Council.

Kim, a politician by profession since the 1980s when he was an aide to former President Kim Young-sam, has often clashed with four-term lawmaker Lee Hahn-koo, a former economist, over the party’s key policies and power struggles in the past.

The tipping point of the ongoing feud is expected to be the nomination committee’s delayed decision on former floor leader Rep. Yoo Seong-min. Yoo, who represents one of the party’s stronghold constituencies in Daegu, is one of the members conspicuously disapproved of by President Park. Park had singled him out as “betraying” her policy initiatives last year, which eventually led to his resignation from the post. The committee has been holding back its decision on Yoo in apparent fear of a public backlash.

Some observers also suggested the growing strife may lead to a mass defection of the non-Park members to form their own political group, as pro-Park members did in 2008 in protest to nomination selections made by the leadership loyal to then-President Lee Myung-bak.

By Yeo Jun-suk (jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com)