The ruling party stressed that the connection between the People Power Party and the Unification Church must be thoroughly investigated.
Boo Seung-chan, Spokesperson of the Democratic Party of Korea, said in a written briefing on the 21st that "the deep, dark relationship among the Unification Church, Yoon Suk-yeol and Kim Keon-hee, and the People Power Party has begun to come to light," adding, "The special counsel has obtained evidence that 10,000 of the 110,000 Unification Church collective party enrollees joined to make 'Kweon Seong-dong party leader' at the party convention held in Mar. 2023." It was a briefing related to the Kim Keon-hee special counsel securing the People Power Party's membership list.
The deputy spokesperson said, "Furthermore, there was also the disclosure of an internal testimonial document stating that President Han Hak-ja issued a directive to support Yoon Suk-yeol to 120 executives at Lotte Hotel on Mar. 2, 2022, a week before the 20th presidential election," adding, "The luxury goods worth 82.93 million won that Kim Keon-hee received from the Unification Church and the 100 million won accepted by Rep. Kweon Seong-dong were merely one facet of this massive 'power–religion cartel.'"
The deputy spokesperson said, "In the face of the fact that state affairs have been swayed by mass enrollments by a specific religious group and the illegal exchange of money and valuables, the public cannot contain its shock and anger," adding, "The Kim Keon-hee special counsel must, without wavering under any political pressure, thoroughly investigate the connection between the Unification Church and the People Power Party. We will break the chain of illegal collusion between political power and the Unification Church, illegal money-for-favors dealings, and power-driven corruption."
Park Soo-hyun, the Democratic Party's chief spokesperson, also told reporters that day, "If the People Power Party colluded with the Unification Church to receive membership applications and put them into the electoral college to hold an intraparty primary, that amounts to an unfair election," adding, "At the People Power Party convention in Aug., among the party-member electoral college, candidate Jang Dong-hyeok received 185,401 votes and candidate Kim Moon-soo received 165,189 votes, a difference of 20,000. If 120,000 were inserted, the game would have been effectively over."
Chief spokesperson Park also criticized floor leader Song Eon-seok of the People Power Party for calling it "statistically normal" that a comparison of the Unification Church's roster of 1.2 million believers and the People Power Party's roster of 5 million members showed a match of 110,000 people, as revealed by the Kim Keon-hee special counsel.
Chief spokesperson Park said, "The electoral college for the 2021 party convention, where Yoon Suk-yeol was nominated as the presidential candidate, was around 570,000, and if the Unification Church had 120,000 party members, that corresponds to 21%," adding, "Talking about statistics of 5 million party members and 1.2 million Unification Church believers is nonsense."
At a general meeting of lawmakers the previous day, floor leader Song said, "Our party has close to 5 million members, so 10% of the people of the Republic of Korea are party members," emphasizing, "If you bring a list of 1.2 million names, it is statistically plausible that about 120,000 would be in our party's membership list."