Assembly seats prove elusive for young conservatives
Reform Party head Lee, independent candidate Jang seen struggling in campaigns
Two high-profile young conservative politicians’ much-heralded bids for the National Assembly seem somewhat anticlimactic as public support for them remains dismal with less than a month to go before the April 10 general elections.
The two politicians are Reform Party Chairman Lee Jun-seok and Jang Ye-chan, a former Supreme Council member of the ruling People Power Party (PPP).
According to a poll by Hangil Research on 503 voters in the Hwaseong-B constituency of Gyeonggi Province, Lee earned a 23.1 percent support rate to follow Kong Young-woon, former Hyundai Motor Company president and candidate from the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), with 46.2 percent. PPP candidate Han Jeong-min trailed behind them with 20.1 percent.
The two-fold gap between Lee and Kong is an appalling result for the Reform Party head, given that Kong and Han are both political rookies. Unlike them, Lee started his political career in 2011 and served as the chairman of the PPP, remaining at the center of the conservatives despite his relatively young age.
Despite being able to attract a lot of attention within Korean politics, Lee’s runs for the Assembly have never been successful, losing in the 2016 and 2020 general elections and the 2018 by-election.
Ahead of this year’s elections, Lee defected from the PPP and created the Reform Party, a big-tent group for those critical of President Yoon Suk Yeol. The party initially gained attention, but now is struggling with its momentum diminishing.
During the launching ceremony of his election camp, Sunday, Lee said, “I started the election of the previous PPP chairman with a 15 percent support rating, but clinched the victory with 60 percent in just three weeks.”
Despite Lee’s optimism, Hong Joon-pyo, mayor of Daegu and one of the few advocates of Lee within the PPP, wrote in an online forum that a come-from-behind victory for Lee “would be difficult,” without elaborating further.
Hong also cast a negative outlook on Jang, who was stripped of his PPP candidacy in Busan for his controversial social media posts, deciding to run as an independent candidate instead.
“Criticism is understandable, but baseless slander stems from his bad habits and flawed understanding of politics,” Hong wrote. “The public is wise. If someone does politics with a flawed mindset, they will end up being punished.”
Jang, 35, made his political debut as the first aide to Yoon while helping prepare his presidential election in 2021. He joined the party’s Supreme Council last year, and won the candidacy in Busan in a primary against a serving PPP lawmaker last month.
However, he lost the candidacy after more than 10 of his social media posts, in the 2010s, came back to haunt him last week. Though Jang issued public apologies twice for the inappropriate posts, the party found them to be insufficient, and he decided to run as an independent candidate.
He wrote on Facebook Tuesday, “I am ashamed of my past mistakes, but I could not abandon the choice of the party and citizens … I will return to the party after winning the election.” In doing so, he is using the fact that he was the first aide to Yoon, dropping hints about gaining possible support from the presidential office for his decision.
Pundits criticized Jang’s move. In an interview with broadcaster YTN, Tuesday, Jun Won-tchack, a lawyer and conservative political commentator, said, “This is not an issue of Jang promoting himself as the former aide of Yoon,” and “If I were Jang, I would say, ‘I will rest for the next four years to study more about politics.’”
The Hangil Research poll surveyed voters from March 15 to 16 at the request of newspaper Incheon Ilbo and broadcaster OBS. Further details are available on the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission’s website.