[Weekly Kyunghyang] “We do not have it in the store. If you order today, you could receive it tomorrow. But is that person running here?”

On March 10, we visited a neighborhood bookstore at the entrance to Gyeyangsan Traditional Market in Gyeyang-gu, Incheon. With a National Assembly by-election set for June 3, we wanted to see whether the books by former presidential spokesperson Kim Nam-jun and former Democratic Party leader Song Young-gil, who held publication events earlier this month, were in stock and how much attention they were drawing from local residents.

<Easy Politics, Kim Nam-jun> and <Truth Cannot Be Contained: Song Young-gil’s Thoughts from Prison> are the books they released. Neither book was on the shelves at the neighborhood bookstore.

Publication-event books absent from the neighborhood bookstore

The store owner, Jo Hee-su (63, female), said, “I will go to the polling place for the June by-election and local elections, but I will not mark the ballot.” The reason she gave was, “Because I feel like the district is being looked down on.”

“President Lee Jae Myung lives on the line next to my apartment, and I have met him several times on the mountain and exchanged greetings. But as for the person who says he will run now, I will only find out who he is when the campaign mailer comes. There will be another general election in two years. I do not know whether they truly intend to work for the district, or whether they are simply trying to extend their own political life.”

From our conversation, it did not seem long since her view of politics had cooled. In the 2017 presidential election, believing that a certain candidate must absolutely not be elected, she even made several phone calls urging people around her to vote for Moon Jae-in.

“If Song Young-gil runs this time, I think the probability of winning is 51%. He and the person you mentioned (Kim Nam-jun) will, in one way or another, come to terms, and whoever runs will win. But thinking of it as a sure thing could be, in a way, looking down on the local residents.”

The 51% figure she mentioned was something we heard repeatedly from residents that day. Yoon Hyung-seon, former People Power Party district chair who was the rival candidate when President Lee Jae Myung first ran for a National Assembly seat in this district, said something similar. Here is what Yoon said.

“No matter how conservatively you see it, there is now almost a twofold gap in party support. At minimum it is 50 to 25. It was the same in the local elections held after President Park Geun-hye was impeached. At that time, when we nominated three city and district council candidates here, the gap with the Justice Party, which came in third, was only 3 to 4 percentage points.”

On the day the reporter visited Gyeyang-eul, the results of a poll of Incheon Gyeyang-eul conducted by Straight News and Jowon C&I on March 78 were released. Party support stood at 59.4% for the Democratic Party and 24.1% for the People Power Party, and assessments of presidential job performance were 68.4% positive and 26.9% negative.

In the ‘suitability for Gyeyang-eul National Assembly member’ poll, Song Young-gil had 40.2%, Yoon Hyung-seon 22.7%, and Kim Nam-jun 14.8% support (n=501). Among respondents who said they supported the Democratic Party (297 people), preferences were Song Young-gil 61.0%, Kim Nam-jun 21.9%, and Yoon Hyung-seon 3.9% (100% mobile phone ARS using virtual numbers, response rate 7.1%, 95% confidence level ±4.4 percentage points. For details, refer to the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission website).

It was notable that there were some people, albeit not many, who said they would vote for a candidate from the opposing party. What do the principals say? Yoon argued, “The 40% support for Song Young-gil is due to name recognition,” and claimed, “Real local sentiment toward Song is not good.”

“When he said he would run for the Seoul mayoral election last time, the first post that friend put on Facebook was ‘I am now a citizen of Seoul’. Is it not proper to first post a message of thanks to Gyeyang residents who had supported him and to those in the district who had helped?”

Even so, his assessment is that the People Power Party has virtually no chance of winning this election.

Why the People Power Party faces an uphill battle in Gyeyang-eul

“Song Young-gil would win no matter which district he goes to in Incheon. The ground is heavily tilted. There are three months left, but unless the central party sets the ton, it is difficult. From experience, once you get into April, even if some bad news breaks (for the Democratic Party), it never changes. So what I hear every day is that if Kim Nam-jun becomes the candidate, it will be favorable (to me), that Song Young-gil would still make it competitive, that if the two run separately it would be even more favorable. But those two will never run separately.”

In the June 2022 National Assembly by-election, he lost to candidate Lee Jae Myung (55.24%) by about 10 percentage points; in the 2024 general election, he failed to secure the nomination. He yielded the People Power Party candidacy to Won Hee-ryong, former Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. He wanted a primary, but Won received a sole strategic nomination.

“A lawmaker known as a power broker tried to coax me, saying he would take responsibility and guarantee my future if I would step aside. At the nomination interview with the screening committee, I asked for a primary. I thought they would decide after two or three days. The very next day they decided on a sole nomination for Won Hee-ryong. Since it was a strategic nomination anyway, they said if the timetable dragged on, it could give the impression the party was not fully behind him, so they made that decision.”

After losing the election, he met former minister Won Hee-ryong.

“Either Lee Jae Myung will go to prison or become president, one of the two, so this place will inevitably have a by-election. So I said let us hold the seat and try it. But he did not say anything.”

Last October, Won resigned as district chair. Gyeyang-eul is currently a suspended local party chapter.

The situation is the same for the Democratic Party, as President Lee resigned his National Assembly seat in this district to run for president. There is currently no Democratic Party Gyeyang-eul district committee office. When he was a lawmaker, the office and support association for Lee Jae Myung, then a National Assembly member, were located at Gyesan-dong Intersection, about 200ｍ from the internal medicine clinic that Yoon currently operates. On the elevator directory, it still reads ‘Gyeyang-eul National Assembly Member Lee Jae Myung District Office’.

That office is now shared by former spokesperson Kim Nam-jun and Kim Gwang, a former Cheong Wa Dae administrator who is preparing to run for Gyeyang-gu mayor. According to staff from both offices, ‘After the presidential election it was vacant, and in late February, after resigning as presidential spokesperson, Kim Nam-jun signed the lease in his name’.

Talk in political circles that the former spokesperson would run here began when he attended a local Mass on Christmas Eve last year together with the president and first lady.

In the new book by Kim Nam-jun, he writes that immediately after his election victory, the president asked him, then the first executive secretary, to “please make sure to manage the Gyeyang pledges”. That would mean that from right after the presidential election, the president intended to send the former spokesperson to his own constituency.

On March 8, Kim toured Gyeyangsan Traditional Market with Park Chan-dae, the former floor leader whose bid for Incheon mayor had been confirmed. With ‘traffic control’ on who will run in the district still unresolved, the former spokesperson accompanied the official party candidate on his campaign schedule. This renewed talk that the so-called ‘Myeongsim’ was being placed on Kim Nam-jun.

In a radio interview, former leader Song Young-gil said, “Since coordination has not yet been completed, I am trying to avoid situations where the two of us might collide”. He seemed wary of overinterpretation of the nerves between the two over the Gyeyang-eul nomination. The same goes for Kim. When asked whether he could make his schedule public, he said, “I am mainly keeping a closed schedule. In an unsettled situation, I have to be cautious”.

“Even the nomination of Song Young-gil for the Yeonsu-gap by-election would be difficult”

Both sides speak of “party coordination,” but time will likely be needed. The leading scenario is that former leader Song, who has name recognition from having served as Incheon mayor, moves to run in the constituency (Yeonsu-gap) of former floor leader Park Chan-dae, who is running for Incheon mayor.

On this, a local political figure said, “Former leader Song has no intention of yielding Gyeyang-eul, but the presidential office does not seem enthusiastic about having him move to the constituency of Representative Park Chan-dae”. He added, “If Representative Min Hyeong-bae runs for mayor of the Gwangju-Jeonnam Special City, redirecting him to the constituency that would be vacated (Gwangju Gwangsan-eul), or bringing him into the Cabinet, is emerging as an alternative”.

Given the complex internal power dynamics surrounding the party convention to be held in August, and ultimately the 2028 general election nominations, there is also a view that it may not be easy for former leader Song to run in the capital region at all.

This figure predicted that the party’s ‘traffic control’ regarding the Gyeyang-eul nomination would inevitably be delayed until candidates in other regions, including for the Gwangju-Jeonnam special mayoralty, are finalized. Since President Lee, a two-term winner in Gyeyang-eul, cannot help but see it as his own constituency, and with it becoming clear that the choice of the former spokesperson is the so-called ‘Myeongsim’, it will not be easy for former leader Song to return or to run in another constituency in Incheon.

A source close to Song said, “Talk of drafting him for a Gwangju-Jeonnam by-election is close to fiction,” adding, “We will follow the party decision, but the basic duty is to serve the district we have worked with for more than 20 years”.