The Koreas | Politics | East Asia

South Korea’s Ruling Party Has a Jung Chung-rae Risk

With President Lee Jae-myung riding high in the polls and the June 3 local elections looking like a sweep, the ruling Democratic Party’s leader keeps getting in the way.

Democratic Party chair Jung Chung-rae attends a campaign event in Pohang, North Gyeongsang, on May 4, 2026.

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung’s approval rating stands at 59.8 percent, according to Real Meter’s latest survey, and the ruling Democratic Party (DP) enters the June 3 local elections as the overwhelming favorite. It is widely expected to capture at least 15 of 17 metropolitan governorships. By nearly every conventional measure, this should be the political equivalent of a victory lap. 

Instead, the DP is contending with a self-inflicted distraction in the form of the party’s leader, Jung Chung-rae.

The latest episode came on May 3 when Jung was campaigning in Busan on behalf of Ha Jung-woo, the DP’s candidate for the by-election of the National Assembly seat. Footage captured Jung approaching a first-grade girl and prompting her, twice, to address Ha as “oppa,” a Korean term of endearment typically used by younger women toward men close to their own age. Ha is 49 and Jung is over 60. 

Opposition lawmakers were swift to condemn the exchange as inappropriate, with some characterizing it as a form of child coercion. Both Jung and Ha subsequently issued apologies, though the framing of those apologies drew a second round of criticism from the opposition and the media. Their apologies were centered on the child having been “placed at the center of controversy” rather than on the conduct itself. 

It was not an isolated lapse. During the 2025 presidential campaign for then-candidate Lee, Jung was filmed approaching a group of young women, taking one by the hand, and asking them to call him “oppa.” The pattern of uninvited physical contact, performative familiarity, and the reduction of bystanders to props in a political moment has recurred often enough that it can no longer be dismissed as spontaneous awkwardness. 

What makes Jung’s conduct particularly damaging is the timing. On May 4, the day after his episode in Busan consumed the political news cycle, South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI closed at 6,936, above the 6,900 mark for the first time in history, placing the psychologically significant 7,000 threshold just 63 points away. The market success story, driven by surging semiconductor stocks and sustained foreign inflows, was precisely the kind of headline the Lee administration would want leading the news. Instead, it competed for attention with footage of Jung badgering a primary schooler. 

This dynamic has happened before as well. On January 22, the KOSPI surpassed the 5,000 mark for the first time in history, a milestone Lee had made a signature campaign promise. On the same day, Jung held an emergency press conference to announce a merger proposal with the minor Rebuilding Korea Party – a move the DP’s own senior leadership had been informed of only 20 minutes before it was made public. The announcement triggered an immediate internal revolt. Three elected DP Supreme Council members went on record in opposition, and dozens of lawmakers signed statements of protest. The merger proposal was eventually withdrawn weeks later but the damage to the party’s internal cohesion was already done – and the KOSPI milestone was completely buried in the resulting controversy. 

Ha’s very candidacy was a subject of disagreement within the DP. Ha is not a career politician. He served as the “senior secretary to the........

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