Cabinet hearing in limbo as hunger strike, party feuds paralyze Assembly
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Han reiterated the point in a video clip on Sunday, calling the disciplinary action "a clear act of organized retaliation and political revenge."
Park Soo-hyun rejected the claims on Sunday, warning that "words and actions that could be perceived as a fight over party leadership should be avoided."
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The National Assembly in Seoul has opened the year in gridlock, beset by clashes between the parties and rifts within them.
South Korea's two main parties are deadlocked over a confirmation hearing for a Cabinet nominee, as the main opposition People Power Party presses for separate special-counsel probes into allegations of bribery involving lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Party.
Inside the parties themselves, things are scarcely more harmonious.
The People Power Party is locked in a bitter feud over the expulsion of former leader Han Dong-hoon. The Democratic Party’s chairman, Rep. Jung Chung-rae, faces a renewed internal test over a push to revive a “one member, one vote” system, which would remove the increased weight given to votes from ranking party officials over ordinary members in internal party elections.
The immediate flash point is the confirmation of Lee Hye-hoon, the nominee to lead the soon-to-be-established Ministry of Planning and Budget, with a hearing scheduled for Monday now in doubt a day before it is set to begin.
The three-term lawmaker from the conservative bloc was tapped by the Lee Jae Myung administration as part of a drive for political balance and cross-party outreach.
However, the allegations surrounding the nominee include illegal applications for apartment subscriptions, real estate speculation, verbal abuse and power harassment of her aides, inheritance tax evasion and preferential treatment in her child’s military service.
Lawmakers from the People Power Party on the Assembly's Strategy and Finance Committee said at a joint news conference Sunday that they would “entirely boycott” Lee’s confirmation hearing.
"Nominee Lee should not be sitting in a National Assembly hearing room, but in the seat of a criminal suspect before investigative authorities," they said.
Rep. Lim Lee-ja of the People Power Party, who chairs the committee, rejected the hearing on Friday, citing the nominee’s failure to comply with requests to submit documents.
Rep. Park Soo-hyun, senior spokesperson for the Democratic Party, said Sunday that the party “will do its utmost to ensure that a normal confirmation hearing can be held tomorrow” during a press briefing on pending issues.
Lee Kyu-youn, presidential secretary for public relations and communication, said Sunday that the administration was maintaining its original stance, expecting that “through the confirmation hearing, nominee Lee Hye-hoon will provide explanations and answers that meet the public’s expectations.”
Separately, Rep. Jang Dong-hyeok, the People Power Party chair, began an open-ended hunger strike in the National Assembly rotunda on Thursday, demanding dual special prosecutors.
One would investigate claims that Democratic Party figures — including former Oceans Minister Chun Jae-soo — received illicit funds from the Unification Church through political lobbying. The other would examine allegations of illicit money in the Democratic Party’s nomination process ahead of the 2022 local elections, including suspicions involving former party floor leader Rep. Kim Byung-kee.
Jang’s hunger strike has unfolded amid deepening turmoil within his own party, triggered by the expulsion of former leader Han Dong-hoon.
The party’s ethics committee on Wednesday voted to impose its harshest disciplinary measure — expulsion — over allegations that members of Han’s family posted messages criticizing now-disgraced President Yoon Suk Yeol on the party’s internal online bulletin board in November 2024.
Han later that day pushed back forcefully, arguing that the move was politically motivated. He said it was “an effort by Chairman Jang to purge me for having blocked martial law,” and likened his expulsion to the imposition of martial law.
Han reiterated the point in a video clip on Sunday, calling the disciplinary action “a clear act of organized retaliation and political revenge.”
The ruling Democratic Party is also showing signs of strain, with Chairman Jeong facing renewed pushback after his camp moved to revive a “one member, one vote” rule.
Critics say the effort is aimed at reshaping the party’s internal balance of power — strengthening the loyalist base that helped elect him and potentially smoothing the way for a second term. Jeong won the chairmanship last August by a landslide among dues-paying party members, even as he lost the delegate vote.
Park Soo-hyun rejected the claims on Sunday, warning that “words and actions that could be perceived as a fight over party leadership should be avoided.”
“If efforts to stoke this kind of controversy go any further, a situation may arise in which it would be difficult to contest accusations of ‘conduct harmful to the party.’”
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