People Power Party (PPP) leader Jang Dong-hyeok visited former President Yoon Suk Yeol at the Seoul Detention Center on Friday. His request for a special visit was denied, so he met Yoon for about 10 minutes under a general visitation arrangement, accompanied by Supreme Council member Kim Min-su. The meeting was, in a word, deeply inappropriate.
Jang was elected in the Aug. 23 party convention with overwhelming support from anti-impeachment conservatives but has since tried to distance himself from the “Yoon Suk Yeol again” faction. While praising far-right YouTuber Jeon Han-gil as a “righteous volunteer,” he refused to give him a party post. He also postponed visiting Yoon, saying he would decide “at an appropriate time.” Yet during the National Assembly’s audit period, Jang made an unannounced visit to Yoon, without informing other Supreme Council members, taking only Kim with him. The move undermined the moderate image he had been carefully building.
Party officials expressed frustration. “No one was told in advance. We learned it from the news,” one said. Acting alone while excluding the party’s leadership contradicts the democratic and unifying principles Jang had claimed to uphold. His aides explained that the visit was a “personal matter,” not an official party act. But if that were true, why was Kim Min-su there?
Kim has repeatedly defended the martial law declaration and denied the Constitutional Court’s unanimous ruling to remove Yoon from office. Jang’s decision to bring him along effectively legitimized such views, contradicting the party’s stance of accepting the court’s ruling and apologizing for the crisis. It’s no wonder lawmakers described the visit as “irresponsible” and “damaging to the party.”
The timing made it worse. The National Assembly’s audit season is the PPP’s main stage to hold the government accountable. The PPP had just intensified its attacks on the administration over Wednesday's housing policy and the summons of Presidential Secretary Kim Hyun-ji. Instead, Jang’s unannounced visit handed the ruling Democratic Party (DP) a distraction and the public a reason to doubt his leadership.
A recent Gallup Korea poll (Oct. 14–16) showed the PPP’s approval rating stuck at 25 percent, well below the DP’s 39 percent, despite multiple controversies plaguing the government — from Kim Hyun-ji’s testimony to the Cambodia case and the land permit dispute. The gap underscores how the party has failed to regain public trust, fixated instead on appeasing its hard-line base.
If Jang truly intends to rebuild the party, he must shed the image of a leader tied to pro-martial law and anti-impeachment politics. His first step should be a clear and final break from the man whose presidency shattered the party’s credibility — Yoon Suk Yeol.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
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