Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Park Sung-joon holds a press conference at the National Assembly on Sunday to announce his candidacy for the Supreme Council. [Yonhap]
Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Park Sung-joon holds a press conference at the National Assembly on Sunday to announce his candidacy for the Supreme Council. [Yonhap]

Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Park Sung-joon declared his candidacy Sunday for the Supreme Council at the party's Aug. 17 national convention.

Speaking at a press conference at the National Assembly, Park took a direct swipe at former party leader Jung Chung-rae, who is widely expected to enter the race for party chair. "The Democratic Party does not want a striker who leads with words alone," Park said.

A close ally of former Prime Minister Kim Min-seok, who is also seeking the party leadership, Park called for completing prosecutorial reform before the convention and pushing through a special prosecutor act targeting what he described as fabricated indictments. "We must finish institutional reform, punish illegal conduct and manipulation, and bring it all to a definitive close," he said. "Judicial reform must also be completed to end the era of Supreme Court Chief Justice Jo Hee-de, who staged a judicial coup."

Park also pledged to win back voters in their 20s and 30s "through action, not words," proposing the creation of a dedicated youth seat on the Supreme Council, a regular listening tour targeting that age group, and a new policy committee focused on young voters.

After the announcement, Park told reporters he believed the current leadership had lost its authority. "Looking at the current Supreme Council setup, there is no clear direction — no clear sense of what the party should be doing or where it should be headed," he said, in a direct rebuke of the Jung-led leadership.

Park joins a growing field of Supreme Council candidates that includes three-term lawmaker Kim Young-ho and first-term lawmakers Park Seon-won, Seo Mi-hwa and Lee Geon-tae, as well as Kim Yong, former vice president of the Democratic Research Institute, Kim Hyeong-nam, former secretary-general of the Military Human Rights Center, and Jung Min-cheol, vice chairman of the party's policy committee.


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