People Power Party lawmaker Jo Gyeong-tae publicly called Wednesday for the expulsion of party leader Jang Dong-hyeok, urging the PPP's ethics committee to "make a decisive move to restore accountable politics." Jo went on the offensive, accusing Jang of refusing to take responsibility for the party's local election defeat and using disciplinary proceedings to suppress internal critics.
Speaking at a press conference at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Jo said the crisis facing the party "is not simply an election defeat." "A leadership that refuses to accept responsibility for losing an election, and the arrogance and autocracy that suppress colleagues who speak the truth, are shaking the party to its roots," he said.
Supporters who had gathered at the press conference chanted "Jo Gyeong-tae, fighting!" and called out his name in encouragement.
Jo said he was "strongly requesting that the ethics committee make the decisive move to expel and remove Jang Dong-hyeok from the party, for the party's survival and victory in the next general election," and laid out four grounds for the demand.
First, he said the party "received a devastating report card of 12 to 4 in regional government head races in the June 3 local elections held under Jang's leadership." He said Jang had publicly pledged at last year's party convention that he would step down if the party lost the local elections, yet more than a month after the defeat he was still clinging to his post. Jo called this "an act of deceiving party members and the public, and one that undermines the credibility of a public political party."
Jo also took issue with Jang's US visit. He said Jang "extended what was originally a two-night, four-day trip to an eight-night, 10-day absence at a critical time just over a month before the local elections," and that Jang subsequently refused to disclose whom he had met or what he had done, citing diplomatic convention. "A leader who should have been at the helm in a moment of crisis disappeared from the scene, and the fact that he could not even explain why is an irresponsible act that abandons the basic duties of a party leader," Jo said.
Jo also cited what he described as remarks by Jang that undermined the judiciary, in connection with the party leader's stance on severing ties with former President Yoon Suk Yeol. "Distorting a constitutional ruling in order to defend someone who has been condemned by the courts is an act that cannot be tolerated from a party leader," Jo said. "The foremost value of a conservative party is upholding the principles of a democratic republic and the rule of law."
Jo also accused Jang's leadership of "inviting division rather than unity," claiming it had labeled legitimate calls for personnel reform as a divisive faction and "privatized the ethics committee and its disciplinary powers to suppress dissenting voices." "A party where healthy criticism and debate have disappeared is a dead party," he said. He added that "exclusionary politics that subtract the opposition have driven away voters in the Greater Seoul area and among moderates, as proven by the crushing defeat in the June 3 local elections."
Jo directed his final appeal to the ethics committee, calling on it to "immediately expel and remove Jang, who has denied the rule of law and betrayed the public trust." He said the demand was "a last act of loyalty to restore the rule of law and party democracy that have collapsed, and to recover public trust."
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