New Korea Party
신한국당
South Korea's conservative ruling party from 1990 to 1997. In 1990 Roh Tae-woo's Democratic Justice Party, Kim Young-sam's Reunification Democratic Party and Kim Jong-pil's New Democratic Republican Party merged in the "three-party merger" to form the Democratic Liberal Party, renamed the New Korea Party in 1995. It elected Kim Young-sam president and became the ruling party of his civilian government; its ramming through of the labour law in 1996 provoked a general strike. In November 1997, as the currency crisis struck, it merged with the Democratic Party to form the Grand National Party.
In depth
The Democratic Justice Party, which had elected Roh Tae-woo in the 1987 presidential election, won only 125 seats in the 13th general election of 1988, far short of a majority, and was left as a minority government. To break the deadlock the Roh government secretly pursued a "grand conservative coalition", and Kim Young-sam of the Reunification Democratic Party, pushed to third place in the Assembly, and Kim Jong-pil of the New Democratic Republican Party also decided to merge. The three agreed on the merger on 21 January 1990, and the Democratic Liberal Party was born the next day. Roh Moo-hyun and others rejected it, broke with Kim Young-sam and formed the Democratic Party (the "little Democratic Party"). The DLP held 218 seats, far more than needed to amend the constitution.
In August 1992 Kim Young-sam took over the party presidency from Roh, and he won the December presidential election, opening the first civilian government since the military coup of 16 May 1961. After the faction around Kim Jong-pil left and the party was routed in the 1995 local elections, Kim renamed it the New Korea Party on 6 December 1995, dropping a name heavily marked by the Fifth Republic, pushing out the Democratic Justice and Republican factions and recruiting Lee Hoi-chang, Park Chan-jong, Lee Jae-oh, Kim Moon-soo and others. In the 15th general election of April 1996 it became the largest party with 139 seats but short of a majority, and it built a majority by recruiting independents and opposition members.
On 26 December 1996 New Korea Party members, with the Speaker absent, passed eleven bills in a snap session opened by the Deputy Speaker. Labour answered this labour law revision, which legalised redundancy dismissals, with a general strike. In July 1997 the party chose Lee Hoi-chang as its presidential candidate, but Lee In-je, who had lost the primary, left to run on his own, and amid the Kia default and a worsening economy the party's support hit bottom. At Lee Hoi-chang's demand Kim Young-sam left the party on 7 November, and the same day Lee and the Democratic Party's president Cho Soon agreed to merge. When the two parties combined as the Grand National Party on 21 November, the New Korea Party dissolved. The English source treats the Democratic Liberal Party and the New Korea Party as one party, and the Grand National Party of 1997 as its successor.