The People Power Party is pushing to reorganize its national party structure, including re-electing local chapter heads across the country. The stated rationale is to transform the party into a "member-centered" organization and sharpen its opposition to the ruling party. The leadership, however, is weighing the plan carefully amid growing internal resistance.
The PPP held a supreme council meeting at the National Assembly on Thursday morning to discuss changing the method for selecting local chapter heads, but reached no conclusion. The meeting ran for about an hour and 15 minutes before ending ahead of a general assembly of lawmakers scheduled for 11 a.m. The supreme council agreed to continue discussions at a closed-door session later that afternoon.
Chief spokesperson Choe Bo-yun told reporters after the meeting that the key sticking point was how to interpret the rules governing the selection of local chapter operating committee heads. "There were aspects requiring both interpretation and judgment," she said, adding that the council had held "sufficient discussion" following its previous meeting on the matter.
Earlier, the PPP's special committee on organizational strengthening proposed not automatically extending the terms of local chapter heads whose mandates expire at the end of this month. The plan calls for all incumbent chapter heads to resign en masse and then be re-elected through a new process that incorporates a member vote.
Under the party's constitution and bylaws, local chapter heads must be elected by the end of August in every even-numbered year, with the specific method left to the supreme council to determine. In practice, chapter heads overseeing regional organizations have had their terms effectively renewed automatically as long as no significant problems arose.
According to the PPP, 32 local chapters are currently classified as troubled. Of the 37 chapters that received poor performance ratings in a recent party audit, 10 chapter heads have submitted their resignations. The leadership has been reviewing a plan that goes beyond filling vacancies in troubled chapters to restructuring the entire national chapter network — in line with party leader Jang's push to recast the PPP as a "member-centered party." The party also solicited opinions from provincial and metropolitan chapter heads ahead of the end-of-month expiration of terms nationwide.
The move also appears to reflect Jang's intention to place more combative figures at the forefront of the opposition fight. In a recent YouTube broadcast, Jang said, "If we leave in place those who have not fought against the ruling party, we will become a party that cannot fight." He added, "The time has come to replace local chapter heads who have done nothing and are only interested in nominations."
Resistance is building within the party, particularly among sitting lawmakers. Because local chapter heads manage regional organizations and party members, the position is closely tied to nominations for the next general election. There are concerns that forcing all incumbents — including sitting lawmakers — to resign and stand for re-election through a member vote could be used as a tool to purge lawmakers who are out of step with the leadership.
Youth supreme council member Woo Jae-jun told reporters after the meeting that the plan "is in effect an early exercise of general election nomination power, and if that is the intent, the leadership itself — and the party convention — should go first." He added, "You can only evaluate others if you are willing to be evaluated yourself." Woo also said there had been "quite a few disagreements over how to interpret the party constitution and bylaws," and that some members had raised concerns about "the potential fallout and how the public would view this."
The party is also moving to overhaul the performance evaluation system for sitting lawmakers, not just local chapter organizations. The PPP is reviewing a plan to incorporate member assessments into the nomination process for the 2028 general election. The recent launch of an "elected officials performance innovation TF" — chaired by Secretary-General Jeong Hui-yong — is seen as groundwork for that effort. The TF will establish criteria for evaluating the party activities and legislative records of sitting lawmakers and other elected officials.
Disciplinary proceedings against sitting lawmakers have also begun in earnest. The PPP's central ethics committee convened Thursday to deliberate on whether to discipline four sitting lawmakers and, if so, at what level. The session came two days after the lawmakers submitted their statements of explanation on Tuesday. The four under review are Reps. Jo Gyeong-tae, Seo Beom-su, Kwon Yeong-jin and Jin Jong-o.
Three-term Rep. Lim Yi-ja has been tapped to fill the policy committee chairmanship, which has been vacant for two months. Spokesperson Park Chung-kwon announced the appointment at a press conference at the National Assembly on Wednesday, describing Lim as "a leading labor policy expert in the National Assembly" who has served as chair of the fiscal and economic planning committee and twice as the party's functional affairs general director in major elections. "We expect her to contribute to broadening our party's reach with a policy-centered approach," Park said.
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