Burden of Yoon’s martial law looms over PPP primary race

The lingering risks stemming from former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s martial law decree became a thorny issue among presidential hopefuls running in the People Power Party’s primary for the June 3 presidential election.

A moment of tension was observed on Wednesday between former Labor Minister Kim Moon-soo and ex-People Power Party Chair Han Dong-hoon during a second press event held for the four contenders who advanced to the next round of the race. Besides Kim and Han, People Power Party Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo and ex-Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo also made the cut.

“I plan to ask (former) Chair Han Dong-hoon in the upcoming debate whether he believes it is because of him that our party had to see (President Yoon) impeached, and now has to go through an election again,” Kim said as he stood next to Han, whom he chose as his preferred opposition in an upcoming televised debate.

In response, Han said, “I’ve never doubted candidate Kim’s heart of patriotism. But our party cannot avoid (the responsibility) tied to martial law or impeachment in this election.” The former People Power Party leader added he hopes to carry out the upcoming debate in a “sincere” manner that could benefit the conservative bloc as a whole.

When he was still in office as labor minister, Kim expressed his disagreement with Yoon’s impeachment in February, when the now former president was undergoing a Constitutional Court trial over his short-lived martial law imposition on Dec. 3, 2024.

Han had tried to convince ruling party lawmakers to vote in favor of Yoon’s impeachment motion, which was eventually passed by the National Assembly on Dec. 14, 2024.

South Korea is now heading into an early presidential election on June 3, following the Constitutional Court's ruling that removed Yoon from office for violating the law and democratic principles with his martial declaration.

Ahead of the second press event, Ahn called for the three other contenders running against him in the primary to join him in his plan to apologize to the public for Yoon’s impeachment and the political turmoil caused by it.

“Former President Yoon’s impeachment is the conservative bloc’s painful history. No one is free from the responsibility of his impeachment,” Ahn wrote on his Facebook. “We must cross the river of impeachment to reach the road of the people and head towards the path of victory — we must all sincerely apologize to the people.”

Ahn also asked the other candidates to revise the Constitution to reform the current single, five-year presidential term to three years with the possibility of being reelected, if any among the four are elected as president.

The People Power Party’s election management committee announced the four contenders for the party nomination on Tuesday evening. All four will now advance to the second round of the party's primary ahead of the June 3 presidential election.

Incheon Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok, North Gyeongsang Province Gov. Lee Cheol-woo, People Power Party Rep. Na Kyung-won and former People Power Party lawmaker Yang Hyang-ja failed to make the cut.

While Yang will not be participating in the next round of the primary, she officially announced her endorsement of Han on Wednesday, citing the need for a leader with a "future-oriented" mindset.

Tuesday's results were determined from surveys conducted by five polling agencies on Monday and Tuesday, involving a combined 4,000 respondents.

The party did not disclose the rates of support from the surveys for the eight candidates who competed in the first round.

While the names of those who made the cut were announced by the head of the party’s election management committee Hwang Woo-yea, the former five-term lawmaker stressed that the announcement was made in Korean alphabetical order. It did not reflect the support rate the candidates received in any way, Hwang added.

The second round of the primary, which is the final one before the May 3 party convention, will involve multiple televised debates scheduled for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. On Sunday and Monday, People Power Party members will vote for the candidate they think their party should nominate, and another public survey will be conducted.

The results for the second round of the primary will be weighted such that half will be determined by the public survey and half by votes of party members, unlike the first round that only took the public opinion polls into consideration.

If the results point to a single candidate by early next week, then the primary is projected to wrap up with no further competition. However, if it is too close to call between two candidates, the primary is expected to continue into the party convention.

According to a Realmeter poll of all potential presidential candidates released this week, Rep. Lee Jae-myung, the former leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, held a strong lead with 50.2 percent of public support.

Trailing Lee was Kim Moon-soo with 12.2 percent. Han received 8.5 percent, Hong garnered 7.5 percent and Ahn saw 3.7 percent support.