"Innovation Election Committee Is a Demand for Jang Dong-hyeok to Step Down"...Internal Strife in Opposition

[Financial News] The leadership of the People Power Party (PPP) on the 13th dismissed Seoul Metropolitan City Mayor Oh Se-hoon’s call for party leader Jang Dong-hyeok to launch an "Innovation Election Countermeasures Committee," saying it was effectively a demand for Jang to resign. Their response reflects interpretations in some quarters that creating such an innovation committee would amount to Jang stepping back from front-line leadership.
Speaking with reporters at the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, senior spokesperson Park Sung-hoon stated, "If the Innovation Election Countermeasures Committee is intended to force out a party leader who was elected by a vote of the party members, it is hard to regard that itself as innovation."
Earlier, on the 12th, Mayor Oh once again postponed registering for the Seoul Metropolitan City Mayor nomination and demanded that Jang respond by forming an Innovation Election Countermeasures Committee and carrying out a personnel overhaul as a follow-up to the party’s resolution to "sever ties with former president Yoon Suk Yeol." Oh has said he will register as a candidate if at least one of these demands is accepted.
On this point, Park warned, "The Innovation Election Countermeasures Committee should be the driving force of innovation, but it could instead be used as a new source of conflict and division in itself." He added, "Innovation does not mean tearing down leadership; it emerges in the process of achieving new reforms on the basis of the current leadership."
He went on to say, "Please make a comprehensive judgment based on the innovative steps the current leadership is already showing you, as well as the range of policies and the election system we will present during the campaign."
Regarding calls for a personnel overhaul targeting party figures who defended former president Yoon, Park replied, "I cannot give a definite answer," and argued, "We are concerned that the purpose of a personnel overhaul may not be to win the local elections, but may instead be perceived as using the local elections as a pretext for yet another source of conflict."
Asked about the fact that Mayor Oh has not submitted his nomination application and whether the party’s Candidate Nomination Management Committee might reopen applications, Park answered, "We will follow the decision of the Candidate Nomination Committee, but I believe both additional applications and a strategic nomination remain possible options."
haeram@fnnews.com Lee Haeram Reporter