Violence mars ruling party’s leadership race

The ruling conservative party’s leadership race has been plagued by violence, as supporters of different candidates clashed during a joint campaign speech event held early this week.

Videos of the speech event held Monday in the central city of Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, showed apparent supporters of former People Power Party interim leader Han Dong-hoon and ex-Land Minister Won Hee-ryong embroiled in a physical altercation.

A YouTuber, who is an apparent supporter of Won, yelled “traitor” and continued to boo throughout Han’s speech when the former interim leader took the podium, a video showed. When apparent supporters of Han tried to confront the YouTuber, a brawl involving at least three people broke out.

At one point, one of the attendees swung a chair at another as a bodyguard tried to break up the fight.

The ruling party’s election management committee formed for the upcoming July 23 national convention said that it requested a police investigation into the three YouTubers who started and engaged in the physical altercation.

The committee also reportedly banned the YouTuber who started the altercation from attending the party’s campaign events in the future.

Monday’s incident comes amid growing concerns of intense mudslinging and slander between Han and Won that failed to cease, despite the election committee’s recent warning to the two contenders to halt “personal attacks” against each other.

A rift opened between the pro-Yoon Suk Yeol faction and supporters of Han within the conservative bloc last week after rumors that the former party interim leader ignored five text messages from first lady Kim Keon Hee ahead of the April 10 general election.

Han was leading the ruling party into the elections at the time. In the messages, Kim offered to deliver a public apology over her alleged illegal acceptance of a luxury Dior handbag, valued at around 3 million won ($2,200), from a Korean American pastor who videotaped the exchange with a hidden camera in September 2022.

Won is a known close aide of Yoon. Observers say that Han, a former prosecutor who once worked closely alongside then-top prosecutor Yoon in corruption allegations surrounding the two previous conservative administrations of Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak, has drifted from the current president.