Rep. Kim Yong-min of the Democratic Party of Korea. [Yonhap]
Rep. Kim Yong-min of the Democratic Party of Korea. [Yonhap]

An online fan cafe for supporters of President Lee Jae Myung has launched proceedings to expel Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Yong-min from its membership.

The administrators of the cafe, known as "Jaemyeong-ine Maeul" (Lee's Village), announced Tuesday that they had opened a vote on whether to remove Kim.

"We had been planning to take expulsion action, but decided to delay and put it to a vote since the party convention was the more pressing matter," the administrators said in a notice. "We now ask residents to make their views known through this vote."

They added that the vote would not be anonymous and would record each participant's identity.

The ballot offers three options: in favor of expelling Kim, opposed to expelling Kim, and in support of Kim.

The administrators said no deadline had been set and that the expulsion process would be concluded at an appropriate time after the vote closes.

As of 1 p.m. Tuesday, 1,806 members had cast ballots. Of those, 1,752 — or 97 percent — voted in favor of expulsion. Forty-eight votes (2.7 percent) were cast against expulsion, and six (0.3 percent) expressed support for Kim.

The cafe also pinned a National Assembly petition calling for disciplinary action against Kim.

The post accused Kim of "spreading false information to the public, making it appear as though the Lee Jae Myung government is not properly carrying out prosecution reform," and called on the party to discipline him for "driving a wedge between the party and the administration and undermining the president."

Kim is considered one of the most hard-line voices within the Democratic Party on prosecution reform. He has long pushed for sweeping measures in that effort, including the complete abolition of prosecutors' supplementary investigative powers.

The cafe has expelled a total of four Democratic Party figures, beginning with former party leader Jung Chung-rae in February. That same month it removed Rep. Lee Sung-yoon, followed by Rep. Choi Min-hee in March and Rep. Han Min-su in July — all three of whom ran in the Aug. 17 Democratic Party convention's supreme council member election as allies of Jung.


min3654@heraldcorp.com