People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok speaks with residents displaced by heavy rainfall at a temporary evacuation shelter set up at Okpo Elementary School in Geoje, South Gyeongsang Province, on Tuesday morning. [Yonhap]
People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok speaks with residents displaced by heavy rainfall at a temporary evacuation shelter set up at Okpo Elementary School in Geoje, South Gyeongsang Province, on Tuesday morning. [Yonhap]

People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok has been making a string of visits to flood- and drought-hit communities, signaling a shift away from the street protests that dominated his agenda after the ballot-shortage controversy in the June 3 local elections. Observers inside and outside the party say that with the Democratic Party of Korea's leadership convention now concluded, Jang is moving to broaden his appeal beyond the party's core base.

Jang, accompanied by floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik and other party leaders, flew out of Gimpo Airport on the first flight Tuesday to inspect damage in Geoje and Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, which were battered by torrential rain. He had originally planned to attend the 17th anniversary memorial service for former President Kim Dae-jung and meet newly elected Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok, but canceled all prior engagements to head to the disaster zone.

Jang first visited the site of a landslide that struck an apartment complex in Okpo-dong, Geoje, then called on the nearby Okpo Elementary School, which is serving as a temporary shelter for displaced residents, where he listened to their concerns.

On Monday, he posted on Facebook asking relevant agencies to "make every special effort so that displaced residents can stay safe and comfortable," adding that he hoped they would "take all possible precautions to prevent further damage."

Jang's grassroots outreach has picked up noticeably of late. On Friday he visited Miryang, South Gyeongsang Province, to review the response to drought damage, including water supply measures. On Thursday he held a meeting with victims of the "New Home" pre-subscription program at the Changneung new town construction site in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. The visits mark a renewed engagement with on-the-ground issues roughly two and a half months after he toured an east-west high-speed rail construction site during the local election campaign — a contrast to the period after those elections, when his schedule centered on outdoor rallies at Olympic Park in Songpa-gu, Seoul.

There is growing expectation that Jang will balance legislative battles inside the National Assembly with continued field visits. When reporters asked spokesperson Park Sung-hoon on Monday whether Jang's stated intention to fight within the Assembly meant he would stop going to Olympic Park, Park said the party leader meant "to fight where fighting can be done inside the Assembly, and to go out to the field where the voices of the people are needed."

With the Democratic Party convention over and Kim Min-seok at the helm, competition between the ruling and opposition parties for centrist voters is expected to intensify. Some within the PPP believe Jang will adjust his approach to widen the party's reach.

One PPP lawmaker said Jang must "create an atmosphere in which the party can be reborn as a party of the whole people — party members matter, but so does the entire nation."

Meanwhile, floor leader Jeong, whose constituency covers Tongyeong and Goseong in South Gyeongsang Province, also canceled major Assembly commitments Tuesday, including a floor strategy meeting, to personally survey flood recovery efforts. In a Facebook post, Jeong said residents, farmers and fishermen in Busan and South Gyeongsang Province "are facing mounting hardship from a succession of natural disasters — extreme heat and drought followed now by this torrential rain," and called on the government to "draw up substantive relief measures, including the designation of special disaster zones."


mp1256@heraldcorp.com