KB News Desk
The Democratic Party of Korea’s decision-making body on Friday gave the green light for plans to register two party convention hopefuls despite failing to meet candidacy requirements, raising questions about fairness from within the party.
The Supreme Council of the Democratic Party on Friday approved plans to accept Rep. Song Young-gil as a candidate for the chair post and Kim Yong, a former aide to President Lee Jae Myung, as a candidate for the Supreme Council, although they are technically ineligible to run at the convention on Aug. 17.
The Supreme Council decided that Song and Kim should be exempt from party regulations, the party’s senior spokesperson Rep. Kang Jun-hyeon told reporters.
Song, a six-term lawmaker, failed to meet the criteria of being a dues-paying party member for at least six months by the time the party started accepting candidate registrations for the August convention.
Song made a comeback to the party in February shortly after he was cleared of charges of having received illegal political funds and bribed party members ahead of the 2021 convention — criminal accusations that led to his departure from the party in 2023. He won his parliamentary by-election in June and recently announced a bid to run for the party leadership.
Meanwhile, Kim could not meet the criteria of paying dues to the party for at least six months throughout a year as his personal bank account was frozen during the period as he faced charges for his alleged role in illegal fundraising for Lee in 2022.
Kim has appealed his five-year prison sentence to the Supreme Court. He had been behind bars to serve his prison term, but was released on parole in August 2025 and has since been engaged in political activities.
After a late-night Democratic Party Supreme Council meeting on Thursday hinted at disqualifying Song and Kim, both claimed Friday that they should be excused because their failure to meet the criteria stems from prosecutorial power abuse.
The two suffered under the “prosecution’s political persecution” and the Supreme Council is now “putting a brake on our candidacy” due to their failure to meet party requirements during the time of the persecution, Song said Friday before the Supreme Council.
Rep. Kim Min-seok, another party chair hopeful, welcomed the party’s decision.
“It is inappropriate to view the scars of prosecution suppression as a flaw,” Kim said via X.
But Supreme Council members close to Rep. Jung Chung-rae, the former chair of the party who seeks to rerun in August, believe that Song and Kim should not be excused.
Rep. Park Ji-won, after the Supreme Council meeting he attended, said, “Despite criticism that the system was being changed for the benefit of certain individuals, the party’s internal regulations were amended to adopt a preferential voting system just a few days ago. … I express deep disappointment that the council approved an exception (for a certain individual’s benefit) on the last day of candidate registration.”
Kim Bo-mi, another party chair hopeful, also said in a statement that she would reconsider taking part in “such an unfair convention.”
She criticized the party for double standards, citing a case in 2022 when Park Ji-hyun, former co-interim leader of the Democratic Party’s emergency committee, could not run again on the same basis as Song.
“Four years ago, Park’s candidacy application documents were denied on the grounds that she had not been a party member for six months. Her request to convene a Supreme Council meeting citing exception clauses was also ignored,” Kim Bo-mi said.
“The Democratic Party must become a party governed by fairness and principles, not by people.”
The two-day candidate registration for the Democratic Party’s August convention is set to be complete Friday. The Democratic Party is to create a shortlist of three applicants for the party chair election, while narrowing down those for party Supreme Council members to eight by Tuesday.
The upcoming convention will elect the party chair and five Supreme Council members in the nine-member decision-making body to serve two-year terms.
