Negative campaigning in PPP party leader election becomes political issue

Members of the ruling People’s Power Party cheer for candidates of party leader election during a joint rally of Daejeon, Sejong, and North and South Chungcheong provinces in Cheonan on July 15. Yonhap News

Negative campaigning in the election for party leader of the ruling People’s Power Party (PPP) has become a political issue, with the opposition's wave of attacks. On July 15, the opposition parties demanded a forced investigation as controversy over the text messages of First Lady Kim Keon-hee and the operation of a comment team spread. Controversy is expected to continue after the party convention. In the past, sparks from intra-party contests have often led to judicial proceedings, such as former President Lee Myung-bak's DAS case and former Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) leader Lee Jae-myung's Daejangdong case.

The controversy over the comment team began with a text message from Kim to former PPP interim leader Han Dong-hoon, in which she wrote, "I heard that you said I was using the 'comment team' to slander you, but that never happened." The opposition claimed that Kim did not deny the existence of the comment team.

"At the beginning of the government, when public opinion was bad due to the ‘relocation of Cheong Wa Dae to Yongsan,' a key official of the ruling party told me, 'We should use some of the them who worked for the party during the presidential election,'" Lee Joon-seok, a former PPP leader, told reporters, adding that he had the feeling that the comment team was run by the presidential campaign without his knowledge.

In addition, former PPP Supreme Council member Jang Ye-chan recently targeted candidate Han, who ran a public opinion team around the same time when Han was Minister of Justice and said he was also a member of the team.

Opposition parties have emphasized the illegality of the allegations and are calling for an investigation. Jang Kyung-tae, a member of the DPK’s Supreme Council, said at a council meeting on the day, "We urge the investigative agency to quickly investigate whether special activity expenses (of the prosecution) have been spent on the public opinion team and find out there were charges of operating private comment teams, obstruction of business, and conducting crimes of public opinion manipulation." Yang Moon-seok, another DPK lawmaker, wrote on his social media account, "We analyzed 60,000 social media accounts suspected of being used by Han’s comment team and discovered 24 highly suspected accounts.

The Korea Rebuilding Party also said that "the suspicion of operating comment team is undoubtedly subject to a special counsel prosecution" and vowed to introduce “Han Dong-hoon Special Counsel Investigation Bill” as the first party platform within this month.

The opposition has also called for an investigation into Kim's alleged meddling in party affairs. The controversy began when Han said, "There is a danger if I disclose all of this," in response to a call for the release of texts exchanged with Kim during a televised debate on July 9. The candidate's use of the phrases "interference in party affairs" and " manipulation of state affairs” in media interviews around the same period led to speculation that the texts he received from Kim contained potentially illegal content.

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.