hankyoreh

President Yoon Suk-yeol of South Korea shakes hands with Han Dong-hoon, his former justice minister-turned-interim leader of the ruling People Power Party, during a New Year’s event on Jan. 3 at the Blue House. (courtesy of the presidential office)

South Korea’s presidential office was reported to have called for the resignation of Han Dong-hoon, the former justice minister who was appointed as the interim leader of the People Power Party (PPP), on Sunday. 

The stated reason for the administration’s demand for Han’s resignation had to do with what it said was impropriety in the nomination of a candidate to run in the general election. However, the real deciding factor is said to have been Han’s disagreement with the president regarding the official response to the first lady’s alleged acceptance of graft in the form of a luxury handbag.  

Han rejected the presidential office’s demands. Less than a month after his appointment (Dec. 26), Han is at the spearhead of a direct confrontation between the Yoon administration and the ruling party, sparking disarray in the ruling camp a mere 80 days before the general election in April. 

According to a report by SBS, Yoon’s chief of staff, Lee Kwan-sup, met with Han to relay the president’s demands for his resignation. Han responded by addressing reporters, saying, “I will do my job and follow my path for the Korean people.” Han did not deny that the president demanded his resignation, and effectively confirmed his intention to continue acting as the PPP’s interim leader.

The presidential office has taken issue with Han’s “surprise” move of naming Kim Kyung-yul, an emergency leadership committee member who was brought on board relatively recently, as a candidate for the Mapo-B seat during a New Year’s personnel meeting for the PPP’s Seoul chapter on Jan. 17. The decision was viewed by some as a case of bypassing the fair nomination process to make a personal nomination instead.

But the presidential office and Han have also been clashing over the handling of allegations that Kim Keon-hee accepted a luxury handbag.

On Friday, Han said the matter was a “question that needs to be considered from the public’s perspective.” This marked a change in tack, shifting from his accusations of a “hidden camera sting” last month to a position taking public opinion into consideration.

Kim Kyung-yul, for his part, has been critical of Kim Keon-hee’s behavior in interviews, claiming that the first lady should apologize over the matter.

On Sunday, the presidential office reiterated its position that the “essence” of the allegations regarding Kim is a “plan to lay a trap to place [her] in a difficult spot.”

A key official with the presidential office said Sunday that they were “unaware” of any possibility of Kim personally apologizing — as some members of the PPP have demanded — or of the presidential office expressing a position.

When asked by reporters Friday about the allegations, an official with the presidential office said that a “Korean American pastor deliberately approached the first lady, using their connections with her late father.”

“Gifts received to the president or first lady are not accepted by the president themselves; according to the relevant rules, they revert to the state for management and storage,” the official added.

This was the presidential office’s first response in around 50 days since a video of Kim apparently accepting the luxury bag was posted last November on the YouTube channel Voice of Seoul.

It was also a rejection of messages from other ruling party members urging the presidential office to respond to the risks presented by the first lady’s case, including Kim Kyung-yul’s insistence that it should “state the facts and apologize,” and lawmaker Ha Tae-keung’s suggestion that a “personal apology would be the cleanest approach.”

Han has stated that he intends to stay in his position. But with the presidential office and main wing of the PPP harboring considerable discontent with him, the clashing could continue.

“It isn’t good to have differing voices coming out from the ruling party. There should have been coordination,” an official with the presidential office told the Hankyoreh.

Key members of the pro-Yoon wing shared similar sentiments. One lawmaker said, “If [Kim Keon-hee] apologizes when she did nothing wrong, we’re just going to have all the left-wing media and Democratic Party calling for punishment.”

Lee Yong, a lawmaker who served in a senior position on Yoon’s presidential campaign, quoted the argument shared by a conservative YouTuber on Saturday in a group chat for PPP lawmakers on the messaging app Telegram. 

“After President Park Geun-hye apologized, it was taken as a given that she had committed the crime, and she ended up impeached,” he said.

“Apologies, forgiveness, and magnanimity are things you do in relationships with normal people, and the left-wingers are not normal people,” he added.

First-term lawmaker Choi Chun-sik argued in the chatroom that the incident was “illegally filmed.” 

“I wonder who is behind them,” he wrote, referring to Voice of Seoul.

The presidential office was reportedly considering having an exclusive interview with a particular news outlet rather than a New Year’s press conference by Yoon, where questions about Kim Keon-hee are bound to come up. Observers are reading this as an attempt to coordinate messaging ahead of time to avoid sensitive questions altogether.

By Kim Mi-na, staff reporter; Seo Young-ji, staff reporter

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