Reps. Hong Young-pyo and Sul Hoon said Thursday they will join a new party led by former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon after leaving the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) in protest of their elimination from nominations for next month’s general elections.
Announcing their decision to join the New Future Party (Saemirae), Hong and Sul claimed the DP has become a “personal party” of leader Lee Jae-myung, referring to criticism that the party eliminated those outside the mainstream faction of loyalists to Lee from election nominations.
Such criticism gathered further traction after the party announced primary results for 20 constituencies Wednesday night, where contenders considered Lee’s loyalists seized party tickets while those not aligned with Lee were rejected.
Rep. Park Kwang-on, a three-term lawmaker widely considered outside of the pro-Lee faction, lost against professor Kim Jun-hyeok, a pro-Lee candidate, in Suwon D district of Gyeonggi Province surrounding Seoul.
Park was the DP’s floor leader whe
n a motion to lift Chairman Lee’s immunity from arrest passed the National Assembly by a narrow margin in late September. He resigned soon after the passage.
In the DP’s stronghold of Gwangju, Park Kyun-taek, a former head of the Gwangju High Prosecutor’s Office, won against incumbent lawmaker Lee Yong-bin and seized the party ticket for the city’s Gwangsan A district. Park is the lawyer defending Lee in his various corruption allegations, including a controversial land development scandal stemming from his time as the governor of Gyeonggi Province.
Likewise, a series of legislators placed in the bottom 10 percent of underperformers in terms of legislative activity were defeated after 30 percent of their primary votes were deducted due to the underperformer designation.
Reps. Kim Han-jung and Yoon Young-chan each lost against proportional representative contenders, as they failed to overcome the deduction penalty.
Six legislators so far have left the DP in protest of the party’s candidate nominations. Inc
luding those who have left the DP criticizing the way Chairman Lee runs party affairs, the total number of defectors climbs to ten.
Source: Yonhap News Agency