Image: Front page of Kyunghyang Shinmun, December 8, 2024. Credit: Kyunghyang Shinmun.
The names and faces of the 105 People Power Party 국민의힘 Assembly Members who boycotted the impeachment vote on December 7 will go down in infamy. During the vote, Democratic Party Floor Leader Park Chan-dae 박찬대 민주당 원내대표 called out the names of each PPP legislator, pleading for them to return to vote - and thus ensuring that their names will remain forever in the National Assembly minutes.
Many newspapers followed Park’s example. National papers such as the Kyunghyang Shinmun 경향신문 and the Hankyoreh 한겨레 printed on their front pages the names and faces of all 105 PPP members who refused to vote on the impeachment bill. Many local newspapers followed suit, printing the names and faces of the local Assembly Members, sometimes accompanied by their phone numbers.
In response, the PPP took down the photos of its lawmakers from the party’s website. PPP Assembly Members have complained of receiving thousands of text messages criticizing them every day, making their phones nearly unusable. One PPP Assembly Member, who installed an app blocking text messages from unknown phone numbers, confessed: “I didn’t think I was going to get so many text messages with such colorful cuss words from the people I know.” Outside of the PPP headquarters, the police set up a large net to protect the building from the public’s projectiles of eggs and rotten tomatoes.