Gyeongtae Gyeong-tae 2 years and 6 months, Jin Jong-oh 2 years, Kwon Young-jin 1 year and 6 months... General election nomination area of influence
Seo Beom-soo 10 months... Possibility of igniting conflict within the party over the ‘appropriateness of the level of disciplinary action’
(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Kim Yeon-jeong and Noh Seon-woong = On the 20th, the People Power Party's Central Ethics Committee decided to 'suspend party membership' against four active lawmakers who were subject to disciplinary review, including 6-term Kyung-tae Cho, re-elected Kwon Young-jin, Seo Beom-soo, and first-term lawmaker Jin Jong-oh.
Among them, three lawmakers, Cho Kyung-tae (2 years and 6 months), Jin Jong-oh (2 years), and Kwon Young-jin (1 year and 6 months), will receive a 'severe punishment' that will effectively prevent them from running as People Power Party candidates in the April 2028 general election, which is 1 year and 8 months away.
Representative Seo Beom-soo was suspended from party membership for 10 months.
The party's ethics committee issued a press release at around 7:40 pm on this day and announced that the results of the disciplinary review were decided at a morning meeting.
The ethics committee can impose disciplinary measures such as expulsion, recommendation for withdrawal from the party, suspension of party membership for between one month and three years, and warning.
Previously, Rep. Cho was subject to disciplinary action for urging a member of another party to reject his party's candidate Park Deok-heum for vice-president of the National Assembly during the election process for the opposition party's vice-president of the National Assembly.
Rep. Kwon caused a stir by grabbing former and current floor leaders by the collar in the process of protesting the allocation to a standing committee of the National Assembly in the second half of the year, and was brought to the Ethics Committee. Reps. Seo and Jin were subject to disciplinary action for making inappropriate remarks at a National Assembly debate where the victim of the 'Busan Roundhouse Kick' incident was invited.
Rep. Jin's support of independent candidate Han Dong-hoon in the June 3rd Busan Bukgap by-election was also grounds for referral to the Ethics Committee.
At the meeting on this day, five out of six ethics committee members, including Chairman Yoon Min-woo, attended, and member Hwang Kyeong-seong, who had called for Chairman Yoon's resignation, did not attend.
Coincidentally, all four people subject to disciplinary action are non-party factions, and have been directly or indirectly creating an angle with Representative Jang Dong-hyuk, who advocates 'disciplinary politics'.
As three of them received severe disciplinary action that would make it impossible for them to run in the next general election, there are observations that the conflict within the party over the appropriateness of this level of disciplinary action may reignite.
There is considerable potential for this to escalate into a legal battle, as there is a possibility that some of them may apply to the court for a temporary injunction, raising questions about disciplinary procedures and levels.
