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| Rep. Yun-ho-jung, center, floor leader and emergency committee chief of the liberal ruling Democratic Party of Korea, presides over a party meeting at the National Assembly on Seoul's Yeouido, Monday. Joint Press Corps |
DPK seeks support from women, progressive voters for local elections to be held in June
By Jung Da-min
The liberal ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) has been seeking an image makeover after its presidential election loss to the main opposition conservative People Power Party (PPP).
Mindful of the upcoming June local elections, the DPK has especially been reinforcing its strategies targeting young swing voters, vowing to pass an anti-discrimination bill in the National Assembly and expand the party's quotas for women as well as young members.
Political watchers said the party is trying to consolidate its support base among members of the liberal bloc by adding progressive policies to its agenda, as it is preparing for the June 1 local elections in which voters will select the leaders of local governments across the nation.
On Monday, the DPK held a meeting of its emergency committee at the National Assembly in Seoul to nominate leaders for the committee.
Two-term lawmaker Rep. Kim Young-jin, one of the closest aides to DPK presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung who had taken the secretary general position for Lee's election camp, was named secretary general of the emergency committee.
The emergency committee has also vowed to implement its earlier pledge to allocate more than 30 percent of its candidacy nominations for members of municipal governments to the party's young members.
Earlier on Sunday, Park Ji-hyun, a 26-year-old activist who has worked toward eradicating online sex crimes, was appointed interim co-chair of the DPK's emergency committee, three days after its leadership resigned en masse following the presidential election loss.
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| Park Ji-hyun, on the screen, the co-chairwoman of the liberal ruling Democratic Party of Korea's emergency committee, speaks during a committee meeting at the National Assembly on Seoul's Yeouido, Monday, where she participated by video. Joint Press Corps |
Park's taking the DPK co-chairwoman position came after DPK candidate Lee narrowly lost to PPP Yoon Suk-yeol in the March 9 presidential election by 0.73 percentage points, in which younger people in their 20s were the swing voters.
The gender divide among voters in their 20s has especially drawn attention among political watchers, as an exit poll conducted by three local broadcasters including KBS, MBC and SBS on Election Day showed that 58 percent of female voters in their 20s cast their ballots for Lee, while 33.8 percent voted for Yoon. In contrast, 58.7 percent of male voters in their 20s voted for Yoon, while 36.3 percent picked Lee.
Such a contrast in the age group is widely seen as a result of the parties' election strategies targeting different gender groups. The PPP has mainly focused on gaining support from young male voters with pledges such as improving rights and welfare for men in their mandatory military service and those who have completed it. It also vowed to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, accusing it of creating "reverse discrimination against men."
But the PPP's strategies have brought a backlash among female voters, leading the DPK to adopt a new strategy of targeting young women in its last-minute campaigning.
Earlier in January, the 26-year-old activist Park was appointed vice chairperson of the DPK's women's affairs committee. Park is best known as one of the two female university students dubbed "Team Flame" or "Outreachers," who first helped bring the "Nth room" criminal case to public attention in 2019. Nth room refers to a high-profile criminal case in which women and underage girls were being coerced into obscene acts and the victims' images and videos were sold illegally and shared in pay-per-view online group chats on Telegram.
The DPK has also vowed to accelerate legislative discussions for the passage of an anti-discrimination law aimed at banning all kinds of discrimination based on gender, disability, age, language, country of origin, sexual orientation, physical attributes, academic background, religion and any other reason. The minor progressive Justice Party has long promoted the law.
The DPK is currently operating under an emergency steering committee led by the party's floor leader Rep. Yun Ho-jung. The party is planning to select a new floor leader later this month.
The committee decided to launch an election operation committee to select the next floor leader, nominating four-term lawmaker Rep. Kim Young-joo as election committee chief.
