Yoon's confidant to lead ruling party as acting chairman

Rep. Kweon Seong-dong / Yonhap

Lee Jun-seok faces calls to step down as ruling party atmosphere turns hostile to him

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Chairman Lee Jun-seok's defiance against a decision by the ruling People Power Party's (PPP) ethics committee to suspend his party membership for six months ended up being a storm in a tea cup.

Earlier, he had threatened not to approve the ethics committee's decision in the party's decision-making Supreme Council meeting, saying that he was in charge.

On Monday, a consensus has been built among the PPP members that Rep. Kweon Seong-dong, a Supreme Council member close to President Yoon Suk-yeol, will lead the party for six months as its acting chairman, replacing Lee, instead of the party holding a primary to elect a new chairperson.

Rank-and-file PPP lawmakers approved Kweon taking the helm in Chairman Lee's absence during a meeting held in the National Assembly. The PPP lawmakers gathered there to search for an alternative to the leadership vacuum to minimize its negative impact on the party.

After rounds of heated debate about the possible risks of the current situation, they agreed that holding a national convention to elect a new leader is against the party's rules and showed their support for Kweon to replace Lee as acting leader.

"Currently, there are no rules or clauses that stipulate the need for a primary in the event of such an incident," he said. "We're told that the suspension of the chairman's party membership is a sort of accident, and that, in the case of such an accident, we are not required to hold a primary to select a new leader. A primary will be held only when the leadership post has been vacated."

His remarks hinted that he would serve as the PPP's acting leader for six months while Lee is removed from the post.

When asked if the party's Supreme Council approved of the ethics committee's decision made on Friday, Kweon said, "The disciplinary measure was confirmed and took effect as soon as the committee made the decision."

He told reporters after the meeting, "Aware of this, the members of the Supreme Council, including myself, agreed to accept it."

Earlier in the day, PPP members held several different small meetings. Senior lawmakers had a closed-door meeting to discuss what to do after the ethics committee's decision on Lee. After the meeting, they told reporters that they fully support Kweon as the acting leader to lead the party for six months during Lee's absence.

Shortly after their announcement, a group of first-term lawmakers also endorsed Kweon as the PPP's acting chairman.

Rep. Lee Jong-seong told reporters that he and fellow first-term lawmakers had discussed various issues, including the public's worries regarding the current situation within the PPP. "Most of us agreed that the current circumstances facing our party are grave and thus must be resolved as soon as possible, so that we can fully focus on urgent policy priorities that have added to the economic pressure on the public," he said.

Counter to speculation that he would try to overturn the ethics committee's decision, Chairman Lee didn't show up for the Supreme Council meeting held on Monday. On Friday, Lee said he would preside over the meeting and nullify the ethics committee's decision to impose the six-month sanction on him.

He was been spotted in public on Monday and did not upload any social media posts, either. Those who are close to Lee said he is still thinking about his options and how to react to the ethics committee's disciplinary decision. The six-month suspension comes in response to his alleged receiving of sexual services twice in 2013 as bribery in return for doing favors for a businessman, as well as destroying related evidence.

"I understand that he had no intention to resign from the party's leadership post," Rep. Kim Yong-tae, a Supreme Council member who is close to Lee, said during a radio interview on Monday. "I guess he would have thought about the ethics committee's decision over the past weekend and would try to find an opportunity to share his views with other party members sooner or later."

The overall atmosphere within the PPP is not favorable to Lee. Some lawmakers urged him to step down from the party's leadership post to take responsibility for his past deeds, although few have said so openly.

First-term lawmaker Rep. Park Soo-young, for example, posted the word "ji-ji," consisting of two Chinese characters, on social media. The term means "knowing the wisdom to stop doing something so as not to cross the line." Although he didn't provide any other words for context, some interpreted his post as an indirect message putting pressure on Lee to quit.

Three-term lawmaker Rep. Ha Tae-keung tried to defend Lee. "The imposed sanction requires him to step aside from party affairs for six months, but that being said, he doesn't necessarily need to step down," he said on a MBC radio show.

But Rep. Ha admitted that Lee has few supporters inside the PPP. "Roughly there are two different factions within the PPP: some are putting pressure on Lee to step down, whereas there is another group of people who say enough is enough and we'll wait and see how the police investigation of Lee turns out," he said.