The Central Ethics Committee of the People Power Party (PPP) on the 20th imposed heavy penalties, suspending the party membership rights of lawmakers Cho Kyoung-tae, Kwon Young-jin, Suh Beom-soo and Jin Jong-oh. Though referred to the committee for different reasons, all four share one trait: they have opposed the leadership of party chairman Jang Dong-hyeok as members of the anti-mainstream faction. With the 2028 general elections about a year and eight months away, heavy penalties against sitting lawmakers amount to effective exclusion from nomination — except for Suh, who received a 10-month suspension. Amid this, at a PPP general meeting held on the 21st, Jang's proposed plan to have all district chapter chiefs resign en masse and stand for reelection met fierce resistance. With talk even of "death to the non-Jang camp," the discipline politics threatens to drive intraparty factional conflict to its worst point yet.
The PPP's internal strife is growing more serious. Kim Chong-in, former head of the party's emergency response committee, made the point pointedly: "Consider why the opposition's approval fails to rise no matter how badly the ruling party performs." In a Gallup Korea poll released the same day, the PPP's approval stood at 25%, far behind the Democratic Party of Korea's 41%. Even as support for President Lee Jae-myung and the Democratic Party wavers over housing and livelihood issues, the main opposition party has not only failed to reap any gains but has seen its very presence fade. This owes to the Jang leadership's single-minded focus on seizing party control by relying on hardline members, while senior party figures fail to show any movement toward conservative unity or reform. Its distance from public sentiment is also a problem. Rep. Lee Jin-sook's forum revisiting the May 18 Democratization Movement has been criticized as a self-inflicted blunder that blocks expansion toward the center and hands the ruling party an opening for counterattack. If the party does not even consider disciplinary action in that case, these heavy penalties will look like nothing more than a purge of opponents.
The June 3 local elections clearly laid out the path the PPP must take: broaden the reach of conservatism and properly check the missteps of the government and ruling party. Yet if it turns its blade inward and clings only to power struggles, the PPP can only collapse from within. The main opposition's lethargy is not the problem of a single party alone. It means the counterweight of democracy — meant to check the ruling party's arrogance and unchecked dominance — is faltering. To criticize the policy failures of the government and ruling party on property taxes, fiscal soundness and labor regulation, the opposition must first earn the public's trust. Would the people truly entrust state affairs to a party that fails to fulfill its own role while obsessing over internal power struggles?
