President Lee Jae-myung and former president Moon Jae-in met for lunch at Cheong Wa Dae on July 1, their first one-on-one meeting since the Lee government took office. Both men called for unity within the ruling Democratic Party ahead of its August 17 leadership convention.
The two-hour gathering, held at Sangchunjae, a pavilion within the Cheong Wa Dae complex, came as intra-party tensions have sharpened into something resembling open combat. Supporters of Lee and Moon have traded derogatory labels online, and leading candidates for the party chairmanship have been drawn into a dispute over which faction can claim the true lineage of late presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung.
Both men opened by calling for cohesion, though observers noted a difference in emphasis. Moon framed party unity as the foundation for progressive solidarity and, eventually, national reconciliation. Lee agreed cohesion mattered but stressed the need to expand beyond the party's base and build what he called a "structural majority." Cheong Wa Dae later moved to smooth over the daylight between the two: Hong Ik-pyo, the presidential chief of staff for political affairs, said unity and outreach were inseparable goals, and that both men had agreed internal opposition could not take a "mutually aggressive or insulting form."
Moon later returned to his home village of Pyeongsan, South Gyeongsang Province. He was quoted by Democratic Party lawmaker Yun Geon-yeong as saying, "It was a satisfying meeting. I feel much more at ease heading back to Pyeongsan than I did coming up to Seoul."
The leading chairmanship candidates responded carefully. Kim Min-seok, the former prime minister who stepped down the same day, wrote that "respect and restraint" had been a Democratic tradition since the Kim Dae-jung era and needed restoring. Jung Chung-rae, backed by factions closer to the Moon camp, said the party needed to unite all supporters of past progressive presidents and broaden its appeal. Song Young-gil, who recently apologized for disputed claims about Jung's conduct at Roh Moo-hyun's funeral, wrote that the right response was to "build a genuinely governing party through unity and results."
Party figures quoted by Hankyoreh cautioned that halting the factional contest won't be easy, with the 2028 parliamentary election and its nomination rights already casting a long shadow over the race. Cheong Wa Dae confirmed the two also discussed prosecutorial reform and inter-Korean relations, though no policy decisions were announced.