Shaman Geon Jin and Unification Church plotted to sway PPP’s leadership election

A member of Special Counsel Min Joong-ki’s team investigating allegations related to former First Lady Kim Keon-hee enters the Buddhist sanctuary belonging to Jeon Seong-bae, also known as “Geon Jin,” in Gangnam District, Seoul, for a search and seizure on July 15. / Reporter Han Soo-bin

It has been confirmed that Jeon Seong-bae, a shaman also known as “Geon Jin,” and a senior official of the Unification Church discussed a plan to collectively register Unification Church members as party members of the People Power Party (PPP) in order to influence the party leadership election. This discussion reportedly took place ahead of the PPP’s first national convention following the launch of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration.

Special Counsel Min Joong-ki, who is investigating allegations related to former First Lady Kim Keon-hee, has obtained text messages containing these discussions.

According to reporting on July 15, Special Counsel Min Joong-ki’s team confirmed that in November 2022, Jeon and a Unification Church executive surnamed Yoon exchanged text messages discussing membership registration in the PPP. The special counsel received forensic data of Jeon’s phone from the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office, which had previously investigated him. In their messages, the two confirmed that one must pay party membership fees for more than three months to gain voting rights in party elections, and they discussed the need to “secure over 10,000 party members with voting rights.”

Prosecutors have been reviewing whether Jeon and the Unification Church official violated the Political Parties Act by forcibly enrolling Unification Church members who had no intention of joining the PPP. Article 49 of the Act stipulates that interfering in party leadership elections can result in up to five years in prison or fines of up to 10 million won. Article 42 prohibits “forcing anyone to join or leave a political party against their will.” Prosecutors also found that Jeon and the Unification Church official discussed ways to boost a particular candidate’s support in party leadership election polls.

The PPP’s national convention took place four months later, in March 2023. At the time, the emergency leadership committee led by Chung Jin-suk eliminated the inclusion of public opinion polls from the election process, raising the weighting of party member votes to 100 percent, despite opposition from non-Yoon Suk-yeol faction candidates like Yoo Seong-min. The change was widely seen as an effort to design the election in favor of pro-Yoon candidate Kim Gi-hyeon, in line with the intentions of then-President Yoon. Kim ultimately won the leadership race.

Jeon’s side acknowledged that he and the Unification Church official had discussed influencing the leadership election but added, “The candidate in question did not end up winning.” The Unification Church responded, “We are not aware of the church official’s actions, as they were done in a personal capacity.”

On the same day, the special counsel team raided Jeon’s Buddhist sanctuary in Yeoksam-dong, Seoul, in connection with allegations that he intervened in the PPP’s candidate nominations for the local elections held on June 1, 2022.

※This article was translated by an AI tool and edited by a professional translator.