Jeong Jum-sik, floor leader of the People Power Party, paid a courtesy call on former President Lee Myung-bak. Coming four days after he invited former President Park Geun-hye to the party's lawmakers' retreat on the 27th, the meeting suggests he is accelerating a push for party unity that leans on the symbolic weight of former presidents.
The moves are seen as an attempt to contain internal discord that has not subsided even after the local elections and to rally the conservative camp. But with conflict still simmering over the re-election of district chapter chiefs and disciplinary action against non-mainstream members, some argue that habitually summoning "old men" has limited power to paper over the party's divisions.
Jeong visited the Cheonggye Foundation in Seoul's Seocho district on the 31st, calling on Lee partly to thank him following his election as floor leader. He asked for advice on containing internal conflict and on effective strategies for confronting the ruling party. Reps. Lee Sang-hwi and Park Soo-min, both classified as allies of the former president, joined the meeting. Rep. Lee served as public relations planning secretary under the Lee Myung-bak administration, while Rep. Park worked as an official in the civil affairs secretary's office.
Jeong arrived at the former president's memorial foundation office carrying an orchid inscribed with the phrase "gosan angji gyeonghaeng haengji." "It means to look up to a high mountain and follow the great road," Jeong said. "Just as the former president overcame the 2008 financial crisis early in his term and pulled off the feat of exporting nuclear reactors to the UAE, there are pragmatic things we can learn from him. That was the intent behind inscribing this phrase from the Book of Odes on the orchid."
Jeong's widening contact with former presidents is read as an effort to find a breakthrough through meetings with party elders, as internal conflict over severe disciplinary measures against four sitting lawmakers and a push for direct elections of district chapter chiefs shows little sign of easing. Still, critics say there are limits to repeatedly bringing former presidents who have left active politics back onto the political stage.
Sitting leaderships calling on former presidents from their own party for advice is a familiar scene in Korean politics. Whenever the party has faced crises at home or abroad, or needed to rally its base, leaders have sought breakthroughs by visiting former presidents and drawing out messages of unity and cohesion. It amounts to a kind of crisis-breaking formula: borrowing the political weight of former presidents who symbolize the party's history and tradition to soothe internal conflict while pulling a scattered support base back together.
During the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk-yeol, emergency committee member Kwon Young-se and floor leader Kwon Seong-dong met with former presidents. Immediately after the party's defeat in the 2024 general election, then-emergency committee chairman Hwang Woo-yea and floor leader Choo Kyung-ho each paid calls on Lee.
Such moves, however, have proved effective when there was a clear shared goal, such as a contest with the Democratic Party or the defense of a sitting government. By contrast, critics say, habitually summoning "old men" to resolve internal power struggles or disputes over party direction is unlikely to serve as a real solution and may instead deepen fatigue among supporters.
Shin Yul, a professor of political science at Myongji University, said summoning former presidents paradoxically signals that the leadership's own authority has limits. "It symbolically shows that they cannot manage the situation themselves, and it will have no effect," Shin said.
Lee tells Jeong the floor's role outweighs the party's
Lee, meeting Jeong that day, called for unity and a hard-line fight against the ruling party to win the 2028 general election. "The floor's role matters more than the party's right now," he said, stressing that the floor leadership must hold the center in resisting the legislative steamrolling of the dominant ruling party while also containing internal conflict.
"Cooperate where cooperation is warranted, but oppose to the end what must be opposed," Lee said. "Even if those people, the ruling party, do not hear you, if you look to the public as you go, you will earn recognition that what the opposition is saying now is right." He added that the party should not fight for the sake of fighting, but should sharply point out the ruling party's failings and appeal to the public.
The two men met for about 45 minutes. After the closed-door session, Jeong told reporters that the central theme was ultimately party unity. "The former president said that winning the 2028 general election through party unity is most important," he said. "Along with that, he said we must practice politics with our eyes on the public, and that no matter how small a minority the opposition is, we cannot win unless we resist the Lee Jae-myung government's reckless drive, and that we should relish resisting."
On Lee's opening remark that the floor's role outweighs the party's, Jeong said the intent was a call to look to the public and fight hard against the Lee Jae-myung government from the floor.
The government's cabinet reshuffle announced the previous day also came up, according to Jeong. "On the nomination of the justice minister candidate, he said something to the effect of, isn't their intent transparent," Jeong said. "He said we must block it to the end. I understood that ultimately as a reference to a special counsel tied to withdrawing indictments."
