Top ruling party officials boycott meeting amid deepening factional rift

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SEOUL, Nov. 13 (Yonhap) -- Three members of the ruling Democratic Party (DP)'s S...

SEOUL, Nov. 13 (Yonhap) -- Three members of the ruling Democratic Party (DP)'s Supreme Council boycotted a council meeting Friday in protest of party leader Kim Min-seok's decision to order an ethics probe into one of the officials over controversial remarks about President Lee Jae Myung.

The three officials, who are aligned with former DP leader Jung Chung-rae, criticized Kim for ordering the party's ethics committee to investigate Rep. Choi Min-hee's remarks suggesting that Lee had opposed former President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment.

Choi, along with Reps. Lee Sung-yoon and Han Min-soo, who together make up three of the party's five elected Supreme Council members, skipped the meeting and held a press conference at the National Assembly instead.

"It should be Chairman Kim himself who should face an ethics investigation right now," they said.

Rep. Choi also came under fire this week for referring to journalists as "a pack of hyenas" in a KakaoTalk group chat.

The lawmakers took aim at Kim for raising allegations that anti-Lee party lawmakers had colluded with the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a nonmainstream religious sect, to have church followers join the DP to sway the outcome of a party leadership race earlier this year.

"He was quick to order an ethics investigation into a fellow Supreme Council member without even asking for an explanation or considering the circumstances," they added, accusing Kim of being lenient on his own misconduct.

Kim apologized earlier this month after an internal party investigation found no evidence to support his allegations regarding Shincheonji, reversing his earlier claim but withholding public disclosure of the results of the probe.

Meanwhile, lawmakers aligned with Kim criticized the three officials for boycotting Friday's meeting, accusing them of fueling divisions within the party.

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