Kim Min-soo, Supreme Council Member of the People Power Party, has directly criticized the recent "expansion of the moderate base" discourse within the party as an empty slogan. [Photo=Kim Min-soo's Facebook] 

Kim Min-soo, Supreme Council Member of the People Power Party, has directly criticized the recent "expansion of the moderate base" discourse within the party as an empty slogan. 

In an interview with the media on the 26th, Kim emphasized that severing ties with former President Yoon Suk-yeol or apologizing for martial law is not a solution for rebounding approval ratings. Instead, he stressed the urgent need for "rallying party members" by upholding the original values of conservatism.

Regarding the demands for expanding the moderate base, Kim stated, "The Democratic Party's strategy for expanding its base is character assassination." He elaborated, "They framed President Yoon Suk-yeol as 'someone who doesn't even go to work because he's drinking' and attacked First Lady Kim Keon-hee as 'Julie,' making people believe these baseless stories as facts."

He continued, "When we attempted to apologize for the 12.3 martial law and distance ourselves from President Yoon Suk-yeol, approval ratings actually plummeted, and there was a rush of party withdrawals. We are on the verge of surpassing 1 million party member registrations for the first time in the history of conservative parties. Signals of conservative supporters rallying are emerging everywhere. Rather than shouting for moderate expansion and yielding, now is the golden opportunity to recover the party's approval ratings while conservative supporters are rallying."

Furthermore, he likened the current crisis faced by the People Power Party to "terminal cancer," arguing that a fundamental "surgery (recovering party sentiment)" is needed, not temporary measures like vitamin injections (moderate expansion theory). In particular, he advocated for "100% reflection of party members" in the local election preliminary round rules, emphasizing party member-centric politics.

Kim stated, "The problem is that many within the People Power Party are trying to secure their own space by setting up leaders. The current leadership is the one raising approval ratings that had dropped to the 10% range."

He also pointed out that attempts to destabilize the Jang Dong-hyuk leadership by relying on specific opinion polls (Gallup, NBS, Cho Won C&I, Realmeter, etc.) are too obvious.

Regarding the controversy surrounding the party member bulletin board, he asserted, "The media and the pro-faction are wrong to frame this as political revenge against former leader Han Dong-hoon. This is an issue that clearly needed to be addressed regardless of who the target was. The party member bulletin board investigation cannot be the seed of discord. The seed of discord is writing the post."

He then drew a line regarding the so-called "Jang-Han-Seok alliance" of Jang Dong-hyuk, Han Dong-hoon, and Lee Jun-seok, stating, "Old-fashioned alliances from the time when tigers smoked tobacco have no emotional appeal and will only bring discord to the party."

Reporter Lim Yo-hee