Grand National Party chairman Hong Joon-pyo said Wednesday he would lead efforts to rebuild the embattled party if party members allow him as pressure mounted on him to step down and allow former chairwoman Park Geun-hye to take charge.

“This is not that I want to keep my post. I want to act responsibly,” he told a press conference at the National Assembly in Seoul. As head of the ruling party, he thinks it’s his responsibility to see next year’s budget plan pass the National Assembly and handle many other pending issues despite the opposition’s boycott of the parliament, he added.

Hong, the party’s chairman since June this year, came under pressure to quit after three of the five members of the party’s top decision-making Supreme Council resigned, stating the need for a complete overhaul, or even disbanding, of the party. 

At a general gathering of GNP lawmakers later in the day, Hong asked rank and file members to decide whether he should stay or go.

“I will do whatever you decide,” he said.

The chairman said he had a roadmap to “recreate” the party to win back the public’s confidence ahead of the parliamentary and presidential elections in April and December next year.

“I also intend to change party rules to allow presidential hopefuls to come to the front line before the planned recreation,” he said.

A sense of crisis deepened among the GNP members after three of the five Supreme Council members announced their resignations.

“I am stepping down from the Supreme Council to take responsibility for all the troubles the party is in now,” said Rep. Yoo Seong-min, one of the three. Reps. Nam Kyung-pil and Won Hee-ryong announced their departure from the council in separate press conferences.

“I think party leaders should give up everything and start disbanding the party and making efforts from scratch to win back the public confidence,” Rep. Nam said, urging other leaders to follow suit.

The resignations underline a growing concern among GNP members that the conservative party, in its current form, will be crushed by a resurgent opposition in elections next year.

The GNP has suffered a series of major setbacks in recent months, including a defeat in October’s Seoul mayoral by-election and a cyber attack scandal. Park, seen as the party’s strongest presidential candidate, is trailing Ahn Cheol-soo, a venture entrepreneur-turned-professor, in polls, although Ahn hasn’t said he will run.

Dealing a severe blow to the already embattled party, police arrested earlier this month an aide of a GNP lawmaker for allegedly directing a cyber attack against the national election watchdog on Oct. 26 when by-elections took place across the country.

Investigators said Wednesday that the suspect, a 27-year-old former assistant to GNP Rep. Choi Ku-shik, was found to have spoken with a secretary of Rep. Park Hee-tae, National Assembly Speaker and another GNP member, several times on the phone, while the attack was under way.

A large-scale distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attack paralyzed the website of the National Election Commission for about two hours in the early morning of the election day. The attack also targeted the official website of Park Won-soon, then a candidate for Seoul mayor. Park beat GNP candidate Na Kyung-won with overwhelming support from voters in their 20s to 40s. Opposition parties claim the ruling party may have been behind the attack, which was aimed at hindering young voters from finding their polling booth.

By Lee Sun-young (milaya@heraldcorp.com)