Hong Jong-ki, head of the Prime Minister's Office, will join the People Power Party's Han Dong-hoon presidential primary candidate camp on the 30th.
The Han candidate's primary organization, the People First Camp, announced that Hong would submit his resignation on this day, and if the resignation is accepted, he is expected to join the camp. Amid speculation that Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, acting president, is on the verge of announcing his candidacy, it has drawn attention that an aide of Han's is joining the Han Dong-hoon candidate camp rather than Han Duck-soo's camp.
Political circles expect acting Prime Minister Han Duck-soo to resign from his post tomorrow (May 1) afternoon and announce his presidential candidacy on the 2nd. On the 28th of last month, two of Han's closest aides, Son Young-taek, head of the Prime Minister's Office, and Kim Cheol-hwi, communication message secretary, expressed their intent to resign. This has been interpreted as a preparatory move to organize Han's presidential camp. It is also reported that Kim Soo-hye, head of the Prime Minister's Public Relations Office, and Park Kyung-eun, head of the Political Affairs Office, are expected to finalize their positions soon.
The day before, officials close to Han Duck-soo reported that they began moving into the office in the Yeouido 'Manhattan 21' building previously used by People Power Party lawmaker Na Kyung-won's camp during the presidential primary. Once Han announces his candidacy, this location is expected to become his presidential camp.
Initially, there were expectations that Hong would go directly to the Han Duck-soo camp, but his choice to join the Han Dong-hoon camp has led to various interpretations. Some in the former ruling party are predicting that Hong will play a bridging role between Han Duck-soo and Han Dong-hoon. Since Han has been relatively passive about uniting with Han Duck-soo compared to candidate Kim Moon-soo from the People Power Party, there is a reason to finely tune the relationship between the two sides.
Hong is a lawyer (36th judicial training course) who has worked as an in-house lawyer for Samsung Electronics since 2013. He joined the legal advisory committee of the Future Unification Party, a predecessor of the People Power Party, after leaving Samsung Electronics in 2020.
That same year, he ran for the 21st general election in Suwon's정 district but lost to Democratic Party of Korea candidate Park Kwang-on. After serving as a director at the Korea Water Resources Corporation in 2023, he intended to challenge Suwon's정 district again in the 22nd general election but announced his decision not to run when Lee Soo-jeong, a professor at Gyeonggi University and the party's first recruited talent, declared her candidacy in the same district. He has served as head of the Prime Minister's Office's Civil Affairs Office since January of last year.