Honam Native Lee Junghyun Appointed People Power Party Nomination Committee Chairman

Three-Term Lawmaker and Former Saenuri Party Leader
Overseeing Nominations for the June 3 Local Elections

The People Power Party has appointed former lawmaker Lee Junghyun as chairman of the Central Party Nomination Management Committee, which will oversee the screening of candidates for the June 3 local elections. This is the first time that a politician from the Honam region has served as nomination management committee chair for a conservative party.

Lee Junghyun, former member of the National Assembly.

According to political circles on the 12th, the new chairman is a three-term lawmaker who previously served as leader of the Saenuri Party (the predecessor of the People Power Party) and is classified as a pro-Park Geun-hye figure close to former President Park. Born in 1958 in Gokseong, South Jeolla Province, he attended Juaam Middle School in Suncheon and Salesio High School in Gwangju, and graduated from the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Dongguk University.

He entered the National Assembly as a proportional representative in the 18th term. He then went on to win election in succession in the 19th and 20th general elections in Suncheon, South Jeolla Province, long regarded as barren ground for conservative parties, thus serving three consecutive terms. He first became acquainted with former President Park during the 17th general election in 2004, and went on to serve as head of the political affairs team in the Presidential Transition Committee’s Secretariat, and as Senior Presidential Secretary for Political Affairs and Senior Presidential Secretary for Public Relations at the Blue House.

In 2016, he was elected party leader at the Saenuri Party’s 4th national convention, becoming the first-ever conservative party leader from the Honam region. In the same year, he stepped down from the party leadership in December after calls for him to take responsibility within the party in the wake of the “Choi Soon-sil Gate” scandal.

In his recent political activities, he ran in the 22nd general election for the Suncheon-si, Gwangyang-si, Gokseong-gun, and Gurye-gun B constituency in South Jeolla Province, but lost to Kwon Hyangyeop of the Democratic Party of Korea. In the 21st presidential election, he declared his candidacy branding himself as a “constitutional amendment president,” but reversed his decision and withdrew from the race five days later.

Most recently, he has been serving as chairman of the People Power Party’s Gwangju–South Jeolla Future Industry Strategy Special Committee.

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