Support Drops and the People Power Party Opts to "Reset" Leaving Just Kim Chong-in

[경향신문]

Kim Chong-in, chief of the People Power Party (PPP) election campaign arrives early and takes his seat at a general meeting of the PPP lawmakers at the National Assembly on January 3. National Assembly press photographers

On January 3, the People Power Party (PPP) made a bold decision and disbanded its election campaign. The party’s presidential candidate, Yoon Seok-youl canceled all his schedules and announced that he would start over. Kim Han-gil and Shin Ji-ye, respectively the chair and senior vice chair of the Saesidae Committee (new era preparatory committee) resigned and so did the party’s floor leaders. PPP lawmakers decided to step down from their party positions. Support for Yoon recently plunged, fueling a sense of crisis in the main opposition party. The party decided to completely reform its election campaign, the possibility of which it had formerly dismissed. However, the outcome of such forced reforms amidst internal strife is unclear.

The People Power Party’s central election campaign released a notice this day announcing, “Everyone from the senior chairman, the co-chairs, and the division directors to the chair of the new era preparatory committee have all informed the candidate of their intention to resign.” This meant that the main figures in the party’s election campaign--Kim Byong-joon, the chief chairman of the election campaign, the co-chairs, the directors of six divisions, and Kim Han-gil, the chair of the new era preparatory committee--had resigned. In this process, the public witnessed a farce where the party announced that the chief of the election campaign Kim Chong-in had resigned but later retracted the announcement.

Earlier this morning, Kim attended a meeting of the election campaign at the National Assembly and said, “I inform you that we will conduct overall reforms to the election campaign.” After the meeting, Kim met with reporters and said, “Since public opinion is putting extreme pressure on our campaign, we decided that we needed to make changes to our campaign according to the public sentiment in order to properly hold the election.” Kim also attended a general meeting of the party’s lawmakers in the afternoon and said, “I told Yoon that after experiencing the election campaign process, we decided that we could not go on like this. I told him that I would play the role of his chief of staff and not the chief of the election campaign and asked him to change his attitude and ‘simply act according to what we have prepared.’” He further said, “Even if the candidate has his own opinion, if it does not go in line with the public sentiment, he must not voice it,” and added, “If the people in the election campaign are too busy studying the intentions of the candidate, we cannot properly lead the election campaign.”

This morning Yoon Seok-youl only attended the market opening of the Korea Exchange and canceled all other schedules including the general meeting of lawmakers in the afternoon. Lee Yang-soo, senior spokesperson of Yoon’s campaign announced, “Along with the changes to the election campaign, Yoon will temporarily cancel all schedules from this moment on.” In connection to the resignation of Shin Ji-ye, senior vice chairperson of the election campaign, Yoon wrote on social media, “I was not heedful of the thoughts of the twenty and thirty-somethings,” and continued, “In the future, I will acknowledge what the older generation are now aware of and start over by trying to empathize with the younger generation.” Afterwards, Yoon discussed follow-up measures at the party office. He came out at around 9 p.m. and said, “It is solely my fault, as the candidate, that many people are worried about the election.” He continued and said, “I was lacking, and I sincerely apologize for my shortcomings.” As for the reforms to his election campaign, he said, “We will reform and change the election campaign and become a completely new campaign.”

Earlier this morning, Shin Ji-ye resigned as the vice chair of the election campaign. She stepped down two weeks after she publicly announced her support for Yoon and joined the new era preparatory committee on December 20. Kim Han-gil, the chair of the same committee also resigned this day.

The party’s floor leader Kim Gi-hyeon and head of policy Kim Do-eup also announced that they would step down from their positions on the floor and from the position of co-chair of the election campaign. The People Power Party lawmakers decided to step down from their party positions in the general meeting. Jun Joo-hyae, floor spokesperson met with reporters after the meeting and said, “We agreed that we need to put all our strength together to put a new government in office with our candidate, Yoon Seok-youl, and that we should give the candidate full authority to reform and lead the party and the election campaign by replacing everything except the candidate.”

Reportedly, during the meeting this day, the lawmakers fiercely held Lee Jun-seok responsible and suggested that he step down as party leader. Lee met with reporters and said, “There is no change to my position.”