![Choi Min-hee, a candidate for the Democratic Party of Korea's supreme council, delivers a policy speech at a joint campaign event for party leader and supreme council candidates held at the Ulsan Exhibition and Convention Center on Sunday. [Yonhap]](https://wimg.heraldcorp.com/news/cms/2026/08/03/rcv.YNA.20260802.PYH2026080202340001300_P1.jpg)
Choi Min-hee, a Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker running for a supreme council seat, accused party leader candidate Kim Min-seok on Monday of failing to see the beam in his own eye and said he should "stop changing the dictionary definition of factionalism."
Choi made the remarks during a morning appearance on KBS Radio's "Jeongyeok Sisa" after the host noted that Kim had been criticizing fellow candidate Jung Chung-rae for engaging in "factional politics."
"Factional politics means lawmakers lining up, or regional committee chairs lining up, and issuing orders to local assembly members on behalf of the candidate they support," Choi said. "Jung is pursuing direct communication with party members and direct democracy — yet it is the other side that has far more lawmakers' backing and is doing the lining up."
She added that lawmakers were hanging banners for Kim's slogan — "A Democratic Party that wins, 100% member vote" — and said that itself amounted to lining people up and factional politics. "Try to find even one person who put up a banner calling Jung 'the more reform-minded party leader candidate,'" she said.
Choi said campaign flyers were circulating on Kim's side as well. "Yet they never see the beam in their own eye — only in everyone else's. That, I find hard to trust," she said.
She added that "diluting the meaning of factional politics and completely rewriting its dictionary definition is truly unacceptable."
sunpine@heraldcorp.com
