hankyoreh

Rep. Jang Dong-hyuk (right) attends a protest on June 16, 2026, outside the handball arena in Seoul’s Olympic Park, which had functioned as a ballot counting location for the June 3 elections, as calls mount on the far right for a redo of the local elections. (pool photo)

Controversy has been mounting in the People Power Party over the actions of its leader, Rep. Jang Dong-hyuk, who has recently been hitting the pavement to campaign for a redo of the recent local elections and announcing an increasingly long list of regions for which he plans to submit petitions challenging the validity of the election outcomes. 

Critics are accusing him of exploiting the situation to defend his position as party leader and pursuing his election do-over campaign without gathering opinions from within the party.

In a Facebook message and position statement on Tuesday, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon accused Jang of “dragging down the whole party with wasteful demands for the election to be redone.”

“The public already knows whether this is a battle to uncover the truth or political sloganeering meant to hold on to his uncertain political position,” he added.

“The genuine desires of young people should not be exploited as fuel for the political survival of a particular politician,” he asserted.

Rep. Kim Yong-tae, a member of the PPP’s junior faction, said Jang was “leading the party down a path of ‘election fraud’ conspiracy theories and tactics to secure his own political position.”

“We need a change in leadership,” he declared.

Another lawmaker from the traditionally conservative southeastern Yeongnam region said, “Even if it is the prerogative of the opposition party leadership to use election do-over calls as a political slogan, it’s something else entirely to take the fight to the streets to incite demands for an election do-over.”

“We can expect a bigger backlash if he ignores his proper role in the National Assembly to focus on rallying the hard-liners from outside the legislature,” they added.

A lawmaker from the greater Seoul region said, “It seems like he’s rallying hardcore supporters as a way of gearing up for a vote of confidence on him by party members.”

Jang has been calling for a nationwide do-over of the local elections, announcing plans Tuesday to submit petitions to the National Election Commission (NEC) to invalidate the results of elections for the seven regions of Seoul, Gyeonggi Province, Incheon, Busan, Ulsan, South Jeolla Province/Gwangju, and North Chungcheong Province. He also stated his demands for a restaged election in a visit that day to a protest at the handball stadium at Olympic Park in Seoul’s Songpa District.

He dismissed calls for his resignation as party leader, saying that would “create a vacuum where we couldn’t say anything about the ballot shortage for the rest of the year.”

Even within the PPP leadership, opinions on Jang’s election do-over calls were divided.

Addressing members of the party’s junior faction, floor leader Rep. Jeong Jeom-sig reportedly said that the “aim of the election appeal is not [actually] to have the election redone.”

Another lawmaker who attended a meeting of fifth-term lawmakers organized by Jeong that day told the Hankyoreh, “The prevailing view was that a nationwide election redo is not realistically possible.”

The conflict appeared likely to flare up at a general meeting of PPP lawmakers that was set to take place on Wednesday at the request of 14 members of Alternatives and Future, an association of junior wing members.

One second-term lawmaker said, “It’s unfortunate that Jang Dong-hyuk’s use of the ballot situation as a way of prolonging his tenure has only deepened conflict.”

“The priority at the general meeting is going to be establishing the party’s position on whether the election should be redone,” they added.

By Kim Hae-jeong, staff reporter; Cho Hee-yeon, staff reporter

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