A caricature satirizing the Constitutional Court’s decision to remove former President Yoon Suk Yeol. ‘Jaemyung’s Village’ imposed a forced withdrawal on Democratic Party Representative Jung Chung-rae on the 22nd. [Graphic capture from Jaemyung’s Village]

Internal conflict among the ruling party’s supporter base has come to light after Democratic Party Representative Jung Chung-rae was forcibly expelled from ‘Jaemyung’s Village,’ a community for supporters of President Lee Jae-myung.

According to political circles and online communities on the 24th, the management of Jaemyung’s Village announced in a notice on the 22nd that Representative Jung Chung-rae and Supreme Council member Lee Sung-yoon would be forcibly expelled with no possibility of re-entry.

The decision was determined by a vote of the cafe’s members, with a total of 1,231 participants voting 81.3% in favor and 18.7% against the expulsion.

In the notice, the management claimed that they "repeatedly act in contradiction to their words, causing discord," and explained that the direct trigger was the appointment of Supreme Council member Lee Sung-yoon as the head of the ‘Special Committee for Responding to Fabricated Prosecutions by Political Prosecutors.’

Jaemyung’s Village is a pro-Lee fan cafe established immediately after the 2022 presidential election, with over 200,000 members. It is considered a symbolic space reflecting the trends of the party’s hardline support base, a place where President Lee himself was once active and referred to as the ‘Village Chief.’

Political observers interpret this incident not merely as an online conflict, but as a sign of internal division within the ruling party’s support base.

Analysts suggest that differences in strategy between the ‘New Lee Jae-myung’ group and the existing hardline supporters have been widening, with tensions accumulating over issues such as the push for special counsels and internal party political lines.

During the same period, the launch of a group of over 100 lawmakers dedicated to the ‘dismissal of charges in the President Lee Jae-myung case and the promotion of a parliamentary investigation’ indicates a trend of pro-Lee lawmakers coalescing independently of the party leadership.

The political sector views the effective exclusion of a ruling party representative from a presidential supporter community as an unprecedented case and is closely watching how it will affect the cohesion of the support base ahead of the local elections.