Lee Nak-yon, splinter DP lawmakers form new party

Politics

Published: 28 Jan. 2024, 18:03 Updated: 29 Jan. 2024, 18:23

Lee Nak-yon, splinter DP lawmakers form new party

Former Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Nak-yon, center, Park Won-seok, third from left, a former minor progressive Justice Party lawmaker, and other politicians take a commemorative photo at an event in Suwon, Gyeonggi, Sunday after announcing a merger between their splinter parties to form the “Future Reform Party” earlier that day. [NEWS1]

Former Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Nak-yon joined hands with a group of lawmakers opposed to current DP chief Lee Jae-myung to launch a new party on Sunday.

Through a press conference at the National Assembly, Lee and the splinter politicians, including those recently defected from the DP, declared they would launch the tentatively named "Future Reform Party" as early as Feb. 4.

Earlier this month, Lee, a former prime minister who had served in the Moon Jae-in administration, left the DP, his party of 24 years, to form a new political party, tentatively named the "New Future Party," ahead of the general elections in April.

Likewise, several DP lawmakers associated with a faction against DP Chairman Lee, including Reps. Cho Eung-cheon, Kim Jong-min and Lee Won-wook, abandoned their old allegiance in recent weeks, saying the party could not hold the Yoon Suk Yeol administration accountable in its current state.

A group of splinter politicians from across the aisle launched another new party, tentatively named the "Grand Future Coalition," on Jan. 14. The lawmakers included Reps. Cho, Kim and Lee, as well as Jeong Tae-keun, a former conservative People Power Party (PPP) lawmaker, and Park Won-seok, a former minor progressive Justice Party lawmaker.

In Sunday's press conference, Park, a co-chair of the Grand Future Coalition Party, and Shin Kyoung-min, a spokesman of Lee's New Future Party, announced that the two sides have agreed to jointly create a new party to enable social reforms to meet the public's expectations.

"We decided to jointly found a party to meet the public's expectations and to abolish vested interests, pursue political innovation and social reform and transform the future," they said in a joint statement.

As both parties are rooted in the liberal DP, the launch of a joint party could significantly impact the DP's approval ratings. The DP currently hold a parliamentary majority.

Park and Shin explained that the tentative name of the party reflects their vision to lead political, social and economic reforms. They stressed that their party platform would include policies focused on "democracy," "people's livelihood" and "future" as keywords.

Upon his defection from the DP, citing his disillusionment with the party, Lee Nak-yon was expected to lead a "third political zone," offering a so-called "big tent" for minor splinter parties and lawmakers searching for alternatives to the leaderships of the two major rival parties to band together. However, Lee has struggled to unite bipartisan political forces under this big tent approach.

Former PPP chief Lee Jun-seok, who defected from the PPP and recently founded the tentatively named New Reform Party, criticized the new party's name on Sunday for its lack of creativity.

Last Wednesday, Lee Jun-seok and independent lawmaker Yang Hyang-ja, who defected from the DP in 2021 and launched the minor Hope of Korea party last year, agreed to merge their parties. They decided to use the party color of orange.

If a grand merger of the splinter parties and independent politicians flounders ahead of the election candidate registration period from March 21 to 22, the April 10 general elections could essentially be contested by two liberal and two conservative parties: the DP led by Lee Jae-myung and the splinter Future Reform Party led by Lee Nak-yon, and the PPP led by interim chief Han Dong-hoon and the minor New Reform Party led by Lee Jun-seok.

This could mark the first four-party election structure in 36 years since the 1988 general elections, when the parties were divided mainly by regional politics.

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]