Sixth lawmaker to leave DP warns party at 'high risk' of losing April elections

Democratic Party lawmaker Hong Young-pyo leaves the podium after giving a press conference on Thursday at the National Assembly, where he announced his departure from the party. [YONHAP]

A sixth lawmaker who quit the liberal Democratic Party (DP) on Wednesday said the party "is at a high risk" of losing the April 10 general election due to its controversial sidelining of members not aligned with leader Lee Jae-myung.

Rep. Hong Young-pyo, a four-term lawmaker representing Incheon’s Bupyeong-B constituency in the National Assembly, said the DP was committing a “political massacre” by excluding members who are not part of Lee’s dominant faction from being nominated as the party’s candidates.

“At a time when the party should be focusing on executing its duty to challenge this ruthless government, it is instead pouring its energy into eliminating internal opposition,” Hong said at a press conference held at the National Assembly on Wednesday.

Hong was notified the same day by his party that he had been cut from the DP’s nomination list on account of his low performance score and his longtime constituency being designated as a battleground district.

He is the sixth lawmaker to exit the DP after being cut in the nomination process, following veterans such as Reps. Kim Young-joo and Sul Hoon, two-term lawmaker Lee Sang-hon and first-term lawmakers Reps. Lee Soo-jin and Park Young-soon.

Other lawmakers who had failed to be renominated, such as Reps. Hong Suk-joon and Yoo Gyeong-joon, said they plan to file appeals with the party.

Hong Young-pyo also accused the DP’s leadership of rigging the nomination process and adding arbitrary hurdles designed to weed out members it deems insufficiently loyal to Lee Jae-myung.

“From its haphazard incumbent evaluation process to its groundless designation of safe seats as battleground constituencies, the DP has made it clear that its real goal was to eliminate me from the party,” Hong said, adding that the party had effectively “declared war” on members disgruntled by Lee’s leadership.

Regarding his next steps, Hong said he would gather those who had also exited what he called “the false DP” and dedicate himself to forging “politics of unity.”

In a morning interview with BBS Radio, Hong further predicted that the growing fallout over the DP’s nomination process would damage the party’s chances of winning a majority in the 300-seat National Assembly.

“I’m very pessimistic about whether the DP can achieve its goal of winning 151 seats,” he said, adding the party would suffer a “dreadful loss” in the general election.

Speaking with reporters after his press conference, Hong predicted that Lee Jae-myung’s efforts to “turn the DP into his own personal association” would backfire because he had “insulted” party members.

In a survey of 1,000 adults released by Yonhap on Wednesday, 26 percent of respondents said they planned to vote for a DP candidate in April, while 33 percent said they intended to support the rival People Power Party.

The seven-percent gap in support for the two parties exceeded the margin of error, which was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

It remains to be seen if Hong and Sul, who are in the process of launching what has been tentatively named the Democratic Alliance, will join forces with the New Future Party launched by former prime minister and ex-DP leader Lee Nak-yon, who quit the party in January to protest what he said was the DP’s transformation into a “bulletproof” shield to protect Lee Jae-myung against corruption allegations.

Hong expressed hope that the New Future Party might ally with his splinter group, which he said plans to field four candidates in the general election.

Hong himself plans to run for election in his old Bupyeong-B constituency.

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