Photo: People Power Party chairman Han Dong-hun. Credit: People Power Party.
A flame war on the People Power Party 국민의힘‘s online message board threatens to explode into a full-blown crisis. On November 5, hundreds of posts appeared on the message board criticizing President Yoon Suk-yeol 윤석열 대통령 as an “idiot who couldn’t control his wife” - i.e. First Lady Kim Geon-hee 김건희 영부인, whom the poster proposed should be “kept at home with a dog leash around her neck.”
Only verified, dues-paying PPP members are able to post on the message board. The board is designed to be anonymous, but a simple workaround allows posters to be personally identified. The online malcontents behind the hundreds of harshly critical posts, turned out, in this instance, to be PPP chairman Han Dong-hun 한동훈 국민의힘 당대표 and his family members, including his wife, parents, in-laws and his daughter. The posts quickly vanished after the news broke.
Han, the leader of the ruling conservative party, has been feuding with the president ever since he called for an investigation into the many scandals swirling around the First Lady. (See previous coverage, “Han Crosses the Rubicon.”) Han claimed that the posts were the work of another PPP member who shared his name, but stopped short of denying his family’s involvement, arguing only that the anonymity of posters should be sacrosanct.
Pro-Yoon legislators demanded that Han come clean about whether his family was involved in the posts, which Han dismissed as “a ploy to take me down as the party chairman.” Pro-Yoon civic groups have filed a complaint with the police, who could decide to open a criminal investigation into the matter.
