Cheon Ha-ram urges party chief to reconsider rejection of his Suncheon candidacy application

Reform Party floor leader Cheon Ha-ram on Thursday urged party emergency committee chief Lee Ki-in to reconsider the rejection of his application to serve as the party's Suncheon-gap district organizing committee chair.

In a Facebook post that day, Cheon said being discouraged from running in Suncheon in the next general election was "like a bolt from the blue."

Earlier Thursday, Lee announced a party reform plan at the National Assembly, saying he would reject Cheon's application for the Suncheon-gap organizing committee chair post. "I understand the weight of the ties and efforts you have built in Suncheon," Lee said. "But now that the party's strategic base has been set, the floor leader must be the first to rally behind that decision."

Lee had designated southern Gyeonggi Province as the Reform Party's strategic stronghold and asked Cheon to "make the decision to run there," but Cheon responded by calling for a review.

Cheon stressed the importance of Suncheon to his political career. "I ran in Suncheon-gap when I first entered politics in 2020," he said. As a young politician from Daegu — known as the heartland of conservatism — he said he had made that choice driven solely by a determination to break the destructive regional divide between the Gyeongsang and Jeolla provinces.

"My wife, father-in-law and mother-in-law all relocated to Suncheon to help with the campaign, and I take pride in having planted seeds of meaningful change, however modest," he said. "That has been the greatest source of strength sustaining me as a politician to this day."

Cheon doubled down on Suncheon as his political base. Even after winning a proportional-representation seat for the Reform Party in the 22nd general election, he said, he had maintained his post as the Suncheon-gap party chapter chair, opened a local office immediately after his election and hired a paid regional coordinator to keep up his activities there.

"I am determined to win a direct mandate from the people of Suncheon in the next general election," he added. "I believe that is the right way to repay the citizens of Suncheon who have trusted and supported me, and the path that honors the party's greater vision — the vision that placed me on the proportional list so I could continue doing politics in the Honam region."

Cheon appealed directly to Lee. "I urge Chairman Lee once more," he said. "Not out of personal ambition, but for the sake of my promise to the people of Suncheon and the greater future of the Reform Party — please reconsider the rejection of my Suncheon-gap organizing committee chair application."