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Lee Nak-yon, a lawmaker and former prime minister for South Korea, officially announces his departure from the top opposition Democratic Party and plans to create a new party on Jan. 11. (Yonhap)

Former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon formally declared his exit from the Democratic Party and announced his intention to create a new party on Thursday. 

“The incompetence of the current administration, combined with the corrupt political system in which each party just serves its own interests, is worsening the various crises that our country is in,” he declared at a press conference.

Lee followed in the steps of lawmakers Kim Jong-min, Lee Won-wook, and Cho Eung-cheon, who left the Democratic Party under the banner of “principles and common sense.” The opposition has now officially split with less than three months until the general election. 

“I have decided to leave the Democratic Party, to which I have devoted myself for the past 24 years, to pave a new path for serving the Republic of Korea,” Lee Nak-yon told reporters at the National Assembly Communication Building. 

“The Democratic Party has strayed from the spirit, values and class of people like Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, once the pride of the party. The party has since fallen to violent and vulgar behavior and language, often acting like a one-man party or a political shield,” he added. 

The longtime Democrat referred to South Korea as a “dictatorship of prosecutors” and a swamp of partisan politics in which parties use their power to protect their own elite rather than carry out their duties. He described the ruling and opposition parties as a “symbiotic relationship of hostility that is destroying the country.” 

“In the words of Confucius, rotten wood cannot be carved. And the current state of politics cannot save the Republic of Korea,” he stated.

Amid the incompetence of the Yoon administration, Lee Nak-yon stated, the legal scandals of party leader Lee Jae-myung have persistently prevented the Democratic Party from performing its duties as the political opposition, thereby obliging him to leave the party. 

The former prime minister also publicly stated his intentions to create a new party.

“I will create a new political force that supersedes the extreme partisanship of the current political gridlock, a faction that solves the problems we face as a country and leads the way for people to create a better livelihood for themselves,” the lawmaker declared, adding that he would cooperate with his “principled and common sense” colleagues. 

The spitting lawmakers are expected to officially announce the creation of a new party on Friday. Lee Nak-yon will likely formally join the movement sometime next week. Regarding former People Power Party leader Lee Jun-seok, who has also pledged to create a new party (tentatively called the “New Party of Reformation”), the former prime minister said he was “willing to work with whoever shares my vision.” 

During a radio interview with CBS, Lee Nak-yon declared that he would not seek office in the 2024 general election.  

He apologized for breaking the principles he pledged to uphold as the co-chair of the committee that oversaw the Democrats’ 2020 general election campaigns. After joining the party in 2000, Lee served five terms as a National Assembly lawmaker. He was also the governor of South Jeolla Province and the prime minister before becoming the Democratic Party leader in 2020. 

As the co-chair of the party’s 2020 general election campaign, he agreed to support the creation of a satellite party. As the party leader, Lee Nak-yon nominated the candidates to run in the mayoral campaigns of Seoul and Busan in the 2021 by-elections. He acknowledged his role in the regressions of the Democratic Party.

“I am partially responsible for the degradation of the Democratic Party. I sincerely apologize to both my fellow party members and the people of Korea,” he said. 

Lee Nak-yon’s announcement was met with harsh criticism from his former party. 

“Leaving the party and splitting the opposition is not the way for progressives to win in the general election and dethrone the current administration,” said Democratic Party Secretary General Cho Jeong-sik.

By Um Ji-won, staff reporter; Kang Jae-gu, staff reporter

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