PPP Audit Committee Requests 3-Year Suspension for Kwon Youngse and Lee Yangsoo over Candidate Replacement Attempt

"Replacing a Legitimately Elected Candidate... Violation of Party Constitution and Regulations"
"Considering the Gravity of the Matter, the Most Severe Three-Year Suspension Imposed"

The People Power Party's Party Affairs Audit Committee announced on July 25 that it would file a disciplinary request with the party's Ethics Committee to suspend the party membership of Representative Kwon Youngse, then acting chair of the emergency committee, and Representative Lee Yangsoo, then secretary general, for three years. This decision comes in response to what the committee views as a violation of the party's constitution and regulations regarding the attempted replacement of the presidential candidate ahead of the June 3 presidential election.

Yoo Iljun, chair of the Party Affairs Audit Committee, held a briefing at the party's central headquarters in Yeouido on the same day, stating, "This is a case where the party leadership of the ruling party attempted and failed to replace a legitimately elected candidate." He added, "We have no choice but to conclude that this constitutes a violation of the party's constitution and regulations." The committee plans to formally request a three-year suspension of party membership for Representatives Kwon and Lee from the Ethics Committee.

Kwon Youngse, Emergency Response Committee Chairman of the People Power Party, is attending a press conference related to unification held at the National Assembly on the 8th. 2025.5.8 Photo by Kim Hyunmin

Chair Yoo described the attempt to replace the presidential candidate as "an unprecedented event in the political history of the Republic of Korea, where the emergency committee, which is the party leadership, attempted and failed to replace a candidate elected through a primary, simply because the candidate refused to unify with former Prime Minister Han Ducksoo, who had not participated in the primary process." He further explained, "This incident has severely undermined the trust of the public and party members in the party, and has also had a significant impact on the party's low approval ratings."

He particularly pointed out the problem that the candidate replacement was carried out against the wishes of former Minister of Employment and Labor Kim Moonsu, stating, "There is no provision in the party constitution or regulations that allows for unification between a candidate elected through the party convention and another candidate invited by the party leadership. It is not permissible to proceed with unification against the will of the elected candidate."

Regarding the scope of the disciplinary action, he said, "The party is already in a difficult situation, and there was just a discussion about whether it would be appropriate to make the scope too broad," adding, "After considerable deliberation, we decided to limit the disciplinary action to just the two individuals, Representatives Kwon and Lee, who played leading roles in this matter."

On the level of disciplinary action for Representatives Kwon and Lee, he stated, "Considering the gravity of the matter, we agreed to impose the most severe penalty of three years, out of the possible range of one month to three years." This decision was made unanimously by all six of the seven committee members present.

Regarding Representative Kwon Seongdong, who was the floor leader at the time, he said, "In this case, it was discussed that Representative Kwon did not take any actions that would warrant responsibility to the same extent as the chair of the emergency committee or the chair of the election committee."

He added, "In principle, all election committee members and emergency committee members who attended and voted in favor in the early morning of May 10, the day of the attempted candidate replacement, bear responsibility." However, he also mentioned, "The mitigating factor is that the root cause of this situation was former Minister Kim changing his stance and refusing to unify, which led the election committee and emergency committee members to feel a profound sense of betrayal."

Regarding former Minister Kim, he said, "It is true that after being elected through unification marketing, he showed a different attitude, causing the party leadership, including the emergency committee, to feel extreme betrayal. There is certainly room for criticism of such behavior." However, he also emphasized, "He was a candidate legally elected through a runoff vote, and forcibly replacing him against his will has no basis in the party's constitution or regulations. The process was extremely rough, and, above all, it exceeded the level that the public and party members could accept."

The disciplinary proposal decided by the Party Affairs Audit Committee will be referred to the Ethics Committee. The final decision rests with the Ethics Committee.

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