PPP's wagons circle to exclude suspended Lee

Daegu Mayor Hong Jun-pyo speaks at a forum for youth civic engagement at Kyungbuk National University in Daegu on July 29. [YONHAP]

Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo, an influential People Power Party (PPP) figure, warned the party’s embattled chairman against seeking a court injunction to end his suspension from the party, saying it would amount to little more than an “ineffective tantrum.”

The 37-year-old Lee Jun-seok, the youngest ever leader of the country's main conservative party, was suspended from the PPP following allegations that he accepted sexual favors and 11.5 million won ($8,800) in bribes from a business owner in 2013 while he was on the emergency steering committee of the Grand National Party, the PPP’s predecessor.

Lee announced earlier that he would seek a court injunction to overturn his suspension.

Writing on Facebook Saturday, Hong called on Lee to stand down. “The man needs to learn when to stop and move on,” he wrote.

“Politically speaking, Chairman Lee’s reinstatement has become virtually impossible,” Hong wrote, adding, “I’ve told Lee to reflect on his actions and focus on his legal defense [against the allegations], but he is committing a grave mistake by continuously speaking out in extreme terms to every little incident.”

Lee has taken to social media to protest his suspension, characterizing it on Thursday as an act of politically motivated revenge for critical comments against President Yoon Suk-yeol by one of Lee’s allies in the party.

Yoon and the PPP chairman and have had a rocky relationship ever since Yoon began mulling a presidential run last year.

Hong also said that Lee’s comments were damaging the nation’s interests.

“As chairman, Lee should put the stability of his party and the country above his own personal interests, but all I can see now is someone bent on running our politics into ground,” Hong wrote.

The PPP’s standing national committee agreed Friday on a draft resolution to switch to a leadership structure headed by an emergency response committee in the wake of Lee's suspension.

The resolution will be presented for approval to a national committee on Tuesday, when the party is also expected to select a chairman to lead the emergency committee.

The emergency committee would replace the one-man leadership of Kweon Seong-dong — and before him, the now-suspended Lee Jun-seok — with an interim collective leadership amid plummeting public approval ratings for both the party and the president.

Kweon, a close ally of President Yoon, became acting chief after Lee's party membership was suspended for six months.

Kweon resigned on Sunday after a private text with Yoon taking a jab at Lee were photographed over his shoulder in public.

As a result, three PPP lawmakers resigned from the party's executive committee over the weekend, and Kweon stepped down as acting chief.

Lee’s threat to seek a court injunction is likely a last-ditch effort to prevent the PPP from abolishing his position, which would leave him with no position within the party.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]