National Congress for New Politics
새정치국민회의
A South Korean party of the Democratic lineage that existed from 1995 to 2000. Kim Dae-jung, who had left politics after losing the 1992 presidential election, founded it on his return in 1995, and with most of the Democratic Party's members of the National Assembly joining it became the main opposition party at once. Allied with the United Liberal Democrats in the "DJP alliance", it elected Kim president in 1997, the first peaceful transfer of power to the opposition, and became the ruling party in the currency crisis. In 2000 it gave way to the Millennium Democratic Party.
In depth
Kim Dae-jung, the former president of the Party for Peace and Democracy, had retired from politics after losing the 14th presidential election in 1992. He campaigned for Democratic Party candidates in the first nationwide local elections on 27 June 1995, which the Democrats won heavily, taking four metropolitan and provincial governorships including the mayoralty of Seoul. Encouraged, Kim announced his return to politics and a new party on 17 July, and 65 of the Democratic Party's 95 members of the National Assembly left to join it. The founding convention of 5 September elected Kim president of the party, which was formally registered on 11 September.
In the 15th general election of 1996 the divided opposition cost it many senior members, and it won only 79 of 299 seats. When the New Korea Party rammed through the labour law in December 1996, it joined the United Liberal Democrats in a sit-in protest. Before the 1997 presidential election it formed the so-called "DJP alliance" with Kim Jong-pil's United Liberal Democrats, and on 18 December Kim Dae-jung was elected with 40 percent of the vote, the first time the ruling party handed power to the opposition through an election. As the ruling party, the National Congress backed the Kim government's reforms under the IMF rescue and kept up its cooperation with the United Liberal Democrats from November 1998. The English source says the party was once for the Third Way and neoliberalism while espousing a neo-developmental state.
Three months before the 16th general election, the party convention of 20 January 2000 resolved to merge into the Millennium Democratic Party, and the party dissolved as it combined with Lee In-je's New People Party and others to form the Millennium Democratic Party.