Joo Ho-young picked to lead PPP temporarily

Five-term People Power Party lawmaker Joo Ho-young delivers a speech at the National Assembly on Tuesday as he accepts his appointment as the chief of the party’s emergency committee on Tuesday. [NEWS1]

Five-term lawmaker Joo Ho-young was named temporary leader of the People Power Party (PPP) Tuesday, a blow to suspended party leader Lee Jun-seok.

A national committee meeting attended by 73 of the PPP's 115 sitting lawmakers in the National Assembly formally approved the transition to an emergency committee leadership for the party Tuesday afternoon.

The 37-year-old Lee, 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 an emergency steering committee of the Grand National Party, the PPP's predecessor.

The emergency committee replaces the one-man leadership of Kweon Seong-dong and before him Lee. The party will be led by a temporary collective leadership amid plummeting public approval ratings for both it and the president.

The motion to establish the emergency committee was approved by the party's standing national committee on Friday and passed to the national committee for finalization.

Although Kweon resigned as acting party chairman earlier last week over texts exchanged with President Yoon Suk-yeol that denigrated Lee, party rules were revised by the national committee earlier in the day to allow Kweon to appoint the leader of the emergency committee.

Immediately after the national committee meeting, Kweon offered the temporary leadership to five-term lawmaker Joo, who accepted on the condition that fellow lawmakers supported the move, according to party insiders.

Joo, who currently represents the Suseong-1 constituency in Daegu, has served as the party's acting leader in May 2020 and April 2021, as well as the party's floor leader during that period.

Joo's appointment was approved by the national committee when it reconvened at 3:30 p.m.

Suh Byung-soo, chief of the PPP's national committee, said Joo's appointment automatically removed Lee as PPP chairman.

Suh urged Lee to stand down from his threat to obtain a court injunction to block his suspension from the party.

"As a politician, Lee should refrain from pursuing legal action and think about his political future," Suh said in remarks to reporters.

He added that Lee's threat to take his suspension to court had factored into the manner in which the party approved the replacement of the chairman with an emergency committee.

"We made sure that there would be no flaw in the way we proceeded with the decision, either at the standing national committee or national committee level, that could be challenged in court," Suh said.

Kweon also said the party needed to move on from Lee's scandal.

"Given the state of affairs and people's livelihoods, we do not have time to waste on internal party problems," Kweon said. "Through our decision today, I hope the party recovers its stability and focuses on putting all its effort into overcoming livelihood issues and breathing new dynamism into the government."

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