Na Kyung-won "Toast for Yoon's Success"... All Party Leadership Candidates Gather

Seoul City Chapter of the People Power Party New Year's Meeting
'No.1 Public Support' Yoo Seung-min Absent

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Young-won] 'Party sentiment No.1' Na Kyung-won, Vice Chair of the Low Birthrate and Aging Society Committee, also gathered.

At the New Year's meeting of the Seoul City Party held on the 11th at the People Power Party headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul, five party leadership candidates including Kim Ki-hyun, Yoon Sang-hyun, Ahn Cheol-soo, Cho Kyung-tae, and former leader Hwang Kyo-ahn, who had gathered the previous day in Gyeonggi Province, as well as Vice Chair Na, all showed up. Those who declared their challenge for the March 8 party convention or those who had not yet declared candidacy but ranked high in opinion polls gathered in one place.

'Harmony' and 'Unity' Needed for General Election Victory

Vice Chair Na proposed a New Year's toast saying, "For the success of the Yoon Seok-yeol government, we must absolutely harmonize, absolutely unite, and be united to surely achieve victory in next year's general election," leading the toast with 'For the success of the Yoon Seok-yeol government' and 'Absolute harmony.'

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Kim, considered to represent the so-called 'Yoon-sim' (President Yoon Seok-yeol's intention), said, "Last year during the presidential election, we had no 'backing,' but now President Yoon Seok-yeol, who works well, has become our strong backing and is forming allies to work together," shouting, "A toast to the success of the Yoon Seok-yeol government."

After the event, Kim met with supporters waiting outside the building and described his strength as "Leadership confirmed through mutual empathy with President Yoon Seok-yeol, leading the party in a well-integrated mode without party discord with one voice."

There were also candidates who showed firm convictions. Ahn Cheol-soo expressed that he can embrace the 2030 generation and moderate voters to win the metropolitan area general election. He explained, "Based on my 10 years of research, the moderate and 2030 groups want someone who is ready to risk their life when the country is in crisis," adding, "I think the reason I have consistently received 20% support in the metropolitan area is because of that."

Ahn 'Metropolitan Area', Kim 'Yoon-sim', Hwang '30-Year Regime Theory'

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Yoon mentioned Vice Chair Na, who recently clashed with the presidential office, emphasizing 'one team.' He said, "We must break the chronic and pathological subtractive politics DNA of our People Power Party," adding, "The subtractive politics DNA is again being activated against Vice Chair Na. We must be cautious."

Cho also said, "For the People Power Party to win, we must unify, but I am confident that we can only win next year's general election by catching two rabbits: unification and reform."

Former leader Hwang also promoted the '30-year regime theory' that day. He appealed, "Having experienced the Moon Jae-in government, I thought we must not hand over power to the left anymore," adding, "We must maintain power for at least 30 years. It sounds like a dream, but if we do not make the dream a reality, our sons and daughters will live in a socialist or dictatorial country."

According to the opinion poll results released that day by Hangil Research and Cookie News, Vice Chair Na ranked first with 30.7% support among People Power Party supporters. Next were Kim (18.8%), former lawmaker Yoo Seung-min (14.6%), Ahn (13.9%), former leader Hwang (5.3%), Yoon (2.4%), and Cho (1.9%).

In the survey of the entire population, former lawmaker Yoo had the highest support at 33.9%. Yoo did not attend the event that day.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.