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In backing DP's Lee, Jinbo Party chief shifts focus from feminism to stopping PPP

Published: 09 May. 2025, 19:06

LEE SOO-JUNG
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Kim Jae-yeon, a former presidential candidate from the left-leaning Jinbo Party, ends her presidential bid at the National Assembly in western Seoul on May 9. [NEWS1]

Kim Jae-yeon of the left-leaning Jinbo Party withdrew from the presidential race after merging her campaign with the liberal Democratic Party’s (DP) Lee Jae-myung on Friday.

Kim was the sole female candidate.

She earlier declared that she would become “Korea’s first feminist president who exterminates gender, income and regional inequality” when she won her party's nomination.

DP's Lee Jae-myung gets endorsement of liberal Jinbo Party

Kim was born in North Gyeongsang, a conservative stronghold, in 1980. She majored in Russian at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. She entered politics in 2012 as a proportional representative candidate from the Unified Progressive Party and was dismissed in December 2014 after the Constitutional Court ruled that the party was "unconstitutional." The court noted that the progressive democracy championed by the party and Kim was a concept applicable in transition from a liberal democratic system to socialism.

Kim joined the left-leaning People's United Party in March 2016. Although she competed for an electoral seat in the Assembly in the 20th general election in April 2016, she was defeated. Since 2020, she has served as the permanent leader of the Jinbo Party.

In an interview with the local media Women News last month, she said the gender agenda has disappeared from the upcoming election, adding, “Silence in the political sphere is cowardly.”

However, she discontinued her presidential run on Friday, saying that she is “uniting” with the DP’s Lee to “deter far-right insurrectionist power from seizing presidential authority again,” in reference to ousted and conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol’s botched attempt to impose martial law on Dec. 3 last year.

Although her exit might be seen as inconsistent with her aspiration to become a “feminist president,” her previous campaign promises appeared to have provided some context.

Kim said an initiative to "exterminate insurrectionist power and establish upright democratic order would be her priority" when she declared her bid on April 8.

Another major promise was to dismantle the conservative People Power Party (PPP) — backed Yoon — and to prevent the PPP from running in the upcoming snap presidential election, according to an Instagram post uploaded on April 8.

No keywords or promises specifically for women could be found in her Instagram post. It can be interpreted that she considered the political objective of safeguarding the presidency as a priority over gender issues.

The pattern of putting more emphasis on her political initiative was also observed in her latest remarks.

During her resignation statement on Friday, she mentioned gender equality once, while speaking about her will to drive out insurrectionist power 14 times and the Yoon Suk Yeol administration four times.

BY LEE SOO-JUNG [[email protected]]