Floor leader Kweon to lead PPP until new emergency leadership is launched

The ruling People’s Power Party (PPP) decided Monday to have its embattled floor leader, Rep. Kweon Seong-dong, temporarily lead the party after a court suspended the chairman of the party’s emergency leadership committee last week.

Kweon will take charge of revising the party charter to form a new emergency leadership committee before the upcoming Chuseok fall harvest holiday in September, PPP spokesperson Park Jeong-ha said after a meeting of the committee. This year’s Chuseok holiday runs from Sept. 9-12.

The decision was made unanimously by the PPP’s emergency leadership committee members, Park said.

The PPP has been in confusion without a leader since the Seoul Southern District Court suspended the duties of its emergency committee chairman, Rep. Joo Ho-young, on Friday, a decision seen as a victory for former PPP chairman Lee Jun-seok in a duel against mainstream PPP members close to President Yoon Suk-yeol.

The PPP immediately appealed the ruling and decided Saturday to form a new emergency committee.

Officials said the party will hold a general meeting of its lawmakers as early as Tuesday to discuss amending the party charter to form the new leadership.

“The party first needs to overhaul its charter before forming a new emergency leadership committee in order to minimize the confusion,” Kweon said, adding holes in the current charter are the main cause of the ongoing “political confusion.”

Kweon also said he will decide whether to resign as the floor leader after the new leadership is launched, arguing that he has “never been reluctant to give up his position” and it is his job now to lay the unrest to rest.

Many party members blame Kwon for the turmoil because it began after he inadvertently was caught on press camera exchanging text messages with Yoon, in which the president was seen backbiting about Lee, revealing the row between them.

The PPP’s decision to push for the establishment of a new emergency committee may not go smoothly because Rep. Suh Byung-soo said he won’t convene a national committee meeting needed to establish the new emergency committee.

Suh, who serves as national committee chair, also called for Kweon to step down.

Kweon, however, said Suh, as a senior party member, has the responsibility to follow the majority opinion.

Ousted leader Lee, meanwhile, filed for an injunction again on Monday against the PPP’s decision to form a fresh emergency committee, saying the decision has no validity because it was made by the emergency committee that was ruled invalid last week.

The PPP also filed for an injunction with the Seoul Southern District Court on the day seeking to suspend the execution of Friday’s court order.