DP chair drops Shincheonji covert infiltration claims

Rep. Kim Min-seok, chair of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, reversed his claims that a religious sect had colluded with his rival's supporters and attempted to influence the party's primary.

Instead, Kim extended an apology to party members who were offended by the allegations he had raised during the party's leadership race.

"Our investigation found no evidence of (party members' collusion with Shincheonji members). I would like to offer my deepest apologies to anyone whose feelings I may have hurt, albeit unintentionally," Kim was quoted as saying by Rep. Kim Sung-hoi, floor spokesperson of the Democratic Party who attended a closed-door session of the party's general assembly at the National Assembly on Tuesday.

The chair added that no party member would have "knowingly spearheaded" any activities involving Shincheonji, a sect loosely based on Christianity led by Lee Man-hee.

This came as Kim abruptly canceled a briefing by Rep. Park Sun-won, a pro-Lee Jae Myung faction lawmaker who has led the party's monthslong internal probe into Shincheonji's ties with party members who are against President Lee Jae Myung.

The apology effectively dented Kim's leadership, as criticism of him is likely to continue.

Rep. Jung Chung-rae, Kim's rival in the party's leadership race, who denied the allegations from the outset, told reporters after the general assembly that Kim should not hide away to offer apologies behind closed doors, and instead apologize publicly to take greater accountability for his wrongdoing.

"Can we really just let this slide? The person who caused the trouble must be the one to apologize. The person who committed the act must be the one to take responsibility," Jung said.

Floor spokesperson Kim said the internal probe result will be kept under wraps, adding that the party has no plans to have police investigate the case.

Before Tuesday's revelation, there was growing speculation that at least 30,000 Shincheonji followers had joined the party, or about 2 percent of all dues-paying Democratic Party members. Park, who led the investigation, refused to confirm the number of Shincheonji followers who were Democratic Party members.

In South Korea's political system, the separation of church and state is a guiding principle in the Constitution, but the sect has been linked to other attempts to influence the political arena.

Earlier this year, a separate probe into the People Power Party indicated that some 60,000 members of Shincheonji had joined the opposition party from 2021 to 2023. The People Power Party had some 1.1 million dues-paying members as of February.

The authorities found these believers had influenced the party to elect Yoon Suk Yeol as the People Power Party's presidential candidate, and allowed him to tighten his grip on the party after he won the 2022 election.

No court trials have been finalized on Shincheonji leaders, including Lee Man-hee, who were accused of coercing believers to join the People Power Party, while the authorities were still looking into allegations of the People Power Party's involvement in the mass infiltration operation.

A similar infiltration scandal involving the Democratic Party came to the fore during the Democratic Party's convention in August.

In July, Rep. Kim Min-seok, a then-candidate in the Democratic Party's leadership race, raised the allegation that the Shincheonji believers who joined the party had colluded with the faction against Lee, accusing them of disrupting the party's internal cohesion.

This was an apparent reference to Jung, under whose leadership the party was often at odds with the Lee Jae Myung administration.

Kim said breaking the collusion was the main goal of his party convention campaign, but he did not elaborate on his claims about Shincheonji's infiltration during the campaign period.