Plaza Alliance

Definition and two usages

"Plaza Alliance" is used in two distinct ways in Korean labor and progressive politics of 2024-2025. First, it is a label attached by critics of the KCTU leadership under Yang Kyung-soo to its line of alliance including the Democratic Party. Lee Gil-woo, head of the KCTU's Daegu chapter, charged that the leadership under Yang used the "plaza alliance" to flatten the history and tradition of thirty years of supporting progressive parties and the principle of breaking the two conservative parties, while Lim Gi-hwan, head of the Jeju chapter, said that Yang and the "Jinbo Party-aligned mainstream" put forward a "plaza political alliance" to add weight to support for the Democratic Party.

Second, "plaza alliance" also serves as a self-designation for the alliance of five opposition parties (the Democratic Party, the Rebuilding Korea Party, the Jinbo Party, the Basic Income Party and the Social Democratic Party) with civil society, formed during the December 3, 2024 martial law and Yoon Suk Yeol impeachment conjuncture. On May 9, 2025 Jinbo Party leader Kim Jae-yeon declared she would not run in the presidential election and would support Lee Jae-myung, saying that "an overwhelming presidential victory through the power of the plaza alliance" was needed for a new Republic of Korea, and announced "the start of plaza-alliance politics to block the far-right insurrectionary forces from regaining power and to pursue the tasks of social reform without wavering."

Distinction from official names

The names the KCTU fixed in official documents are "plaza politics" and "direct politics," not "plaza alliance." The political direction of the 77th extraordinary delegates' conference provided that the KCTU would "pursue the building of workers' political forces through direct politics and plaza politics," and its general-election direction set out to "realize a solidarity alliance of progressive political forces in order to implement workers' direct politics and plaza politics in the 2024 general election." Describing "plaza alliance" as the KCTU's official political-line name is therefore an interpretation not confirmed by the documents.

Historical background

The founding goal of the KCTU was the "two wings" doctrine, pairing industrial unionism (economic struggle) with the building of workers' political forces (a progressive party); it inherited the 1997 presidential campaign National Victory 21 and organized support for the Democratic Labor Party founded in 2000. The split of the Democratic Labor Party and the 2011 Unified Progressive Party affair damaged the relationship between the labor masses and the progressive parties, and after 2012, when exclusive endorsement became impossible, the KCTU's election directions weakened into a formal recommendation to choose one of several progressive-party candidates. A critical reading holds that this trajectory led to the Jinbo Party's participation in a proportional satellite party in the 2024 general election and to Kim Jae-yeon's endorsement of Lee Jae-myung in 2025.

At the KCTU's 77th extraordinary delegates' conference, 957 of 1,848 delegates attended, 933 were confirmed present, and the political and general-election directions were adopted by vote. Because Chamyeowa Hyeoksin describes the conference as "last September's extraordinary delegates' conference" while the KCTU's press release says it was held on the 14th, September and October accounts coexist, and the precise month is left unstated here. The political direction comprised five items aiming at workers' taking power and social transformation through the rallying of progressive political forces including progressive parties, and provided for "pursuing the building of a labor-centered progressive party on that basis." The general-election direction called for joint general-election action with "all possibilities open," from building a united party with progressive parties to policy solidarity, candidate unification and joint campaigning, and set the goal of building a united party by the 2026 local elections.

The 2024 general election and 2025 presidential election

In December 2023 the central executive committee agreed that, in order to implement workers' direct politics and plaza politics in the 2024 general election, the KCTU would pursue a solidarity alliance of progressive political forces, with the Labor Party, the Green Party, the Justice Party and the Jinbo Party (in alphabetical order) and progressive political organizations as the partners, keeping "all possibilities open" including building a united party, policy solidarity, candidate unification and joint campaigning, and would form a "KCTU-progressive parties joint general-election response body for a great social transformation of Korean society." It defined the People Power Party and the Democratic Party as the two pro-capital conservative parties and banned organized endorsement of them and endorsement by incumbent or former officials using their positions. Conflict over implementation remained, however, because no withdrawal of support followed the Jinbo Party's participation in the Democratic Party's satellite party, the Democratic United Alliance.

On April 29, 2025, a candidate direction stating that the KCTU would "support progressive parties and candidates allied with progressive parties" was put to a point-focused central executive committee meeting and voted down; on May 9, Jinbo Party leader Kim Jae-yeon declared her support for Lee Jae-myung and resigned, so that "a candidate allied with progressive parties" effectively meant Lee Jae-myung. At the May 15 central executive committee meeting the item on endorsing candidate Kwon Young-guk, tabled under other business, was postponed when Chairman Yang Kyung-soo halted the meeting, and the May 20 meeting ran from 1 p.m. to 10:40 p.m. without reaching a conclusion. The body even moved to decide by vote whether to hold a vote, but only 14 of the 33 members present supported it and the motion failed, so in the June 3, 2025 presidential election the KCTU could not adopt an official endorsed candidate, the first time since its founding in 1995.

Assessments and prospects

Chairman Yang Kyung-soo himself explained that the "solidarity alliance" executive proposal was not one for the Democratic Party. He argued that "it was a proposal to support both progressive parties and the Democratic Party," that it was meant to guarantee and reflect all the various opinions within the organization, and that choosing one side would exclude the other position and was therefore inappropriate. This stands opposed to critics' characterization of the "plaza alliance" as a line of support for the Democratic Party.

Critics view the Yang Kyung-soo leadership as dominated by the NL-aligned opinion group the National Conference of Democratic Workers (Jeongukhoeui) and close to the Jinbo Party, and read the dispute as an extension of the old line conflict between "democratic grand alliance" theory and "the people's independent building of political forces through a progressive party." They argued that "the logic of the democratic grand alliance is always 'later'," so that a plan to realize social reform after an overwhelming victory ends in endless delay of measures such as the anti-discrimination law. After the failure to set a presidential direction, demands for Chairman Yang to take responsibility and resign were raised inside and outside the organization, and by May 23, 2025 the calls for accountability were growing. Over the delegates' conference decision to build a labor-centered progressive united party by the 22nd general election and the 2026 local elections, controversy reignited over who bears responsibility for carrying it out and over the direction of rebuilding progressive politics.