Who is Hwang Woo-yo, who was appointed head of the interim executive committee by the ruling party after its major defeat in the South Korean general election?

The ruling People Power Party, which suffered a major defeat in the South Korean general election on the 10th of last month, appointed former representative of the party's predecessor, the Saenuri Party, and the bipartisan Korean-Japanese Alliance, as chairman of its temporary executive committee, the Emergency Response Committee, on the 29th of last month.
The party nominated Hwang Woo-yo (76), who has served as chairman of the parliamentary alliance. If he is formally appointed at the national committee meeting on the 2nd of this month, the party will elect a new executive committee at the party convention to be held in June.
He will lead the party as an interim executive until the election. South Korea's public broadcaster KBS said, "Hwang will be in charge of coordinating various issues between the presidential office and the ruling party, but he is still feeling the effects of the landslide defeat in the general election.
"Attention is focused on whether he can restore the ruling party, whose power has weakened," he said. South Korea held a general election on the 10th of last month. The new president, Yoon Seok-yeol, who was inaugurated in May 2022,
The election was positioned as a "mid-term evaluation" of the power of the Democratic Party of Korea, and was contested through single-seat constituencies (254 seats) and proportional representation (46 seats).
The LDP has 114 seats (ibid.), meaning that the opposition parties hold a majority of seats in the Diet, creating a "twisted" situation, and the focus of last month's general election was whether this situation could be resolved.
The results of the vote showed that the People Power Party won 108 seats and the Democratic Party of Korea won 175 seats, while the People Power Party, which supports President Yoon, suffered a major defeat.
Although the opposition parties fell short of the 200 seats needed to pass constitutional amendments or motions calling for the impeachment of the president, they continue to hold the reins of power in the political arena.
The People's Power Party took responsibility for the party's slump in approval ratings and switched to an emergency task force system without a leader following the resignation of its former leader.
In December, the party appointed Han Dong-hoon, who is said to be President Yoon's closest aide since his time as prosecutor, as chairman of the committee. At the time, the party was looking ahead to the general election and chose Han, who is popular among the public, as the party leader.
By appointing him as the top candidate, the party hoped to expand support among the younger generation and independent voters, leading to victory. However, as mentioned above, the People Power Party suffered a major defeat in the general election. Han said, "The will of the people is always right.
"On behalf of our party, I would like to apologize to the people for not being worthy of being selected," he said, and resigned as chairman on the 11th of last month, the day after the general election.
As the party is rushing to rebuild itself, it appointed Huang Yu-lu as the new emergency response committee chairman on the 29th of last month.
Hwang is 76 years old and from Ganghwa Island, Gyeonggi Province, near Seoul. A former judge, he entered politics in 1996 and served as a member of the ruling party, the predecessor of the People Power Party, during the Park Geun-hye administration.
He served as the leader of the Saenuri Party, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education, and Chairman of the Korea-Japan Parliamentary Friendship League. In January 2013, as chairman of the league, he paid a courtesy visit to then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
"I want to build a relationship of trust with a future-oriented perspective while keeping an eye on the future," he said, showing his enthusiasm for building relations between Japan and South Korea. However, in April 2015, he attended the Asian-African Conference in Indonesia as a representative of the South Korean government.
In his keynote speech, he said, "Historical revisionism in Northeast Asia is inciting suspicion and tension between nations. Historical issues remain unresolved and are hindering reconciliation and cooperation."
Although this did not reach a consensus, South Korean media reporting on the remarks at the time pointed out that "the remarks were related to recent historical issues and appear to be directed at Japan."
If Huang is formally appointed as emergency response committee chairman on the 2nd, he will be the next leader in the election of a new executive committee at the party congress scheduled for June.
According to the South Korean newspaper Dong-A Ilbo, Yoon Jae-ok, the party's acting floor leader, who announced the appointment of Hwang as chairman of the emergency response committee, said of Hwang:
"He is someone who can fairly manage the party," the newspaper said, but added, "Since senior members of the party refused one after another, he asked for help from the party's former elder statesmen."
He retired as a member of the ruling party and is now serving as a permanent adviser to the party. Following a major defeat in the general election, the party is under pressure to renew itself, and while some within the party have said that "Hwang is the person we need in these difficult times," others have said that "he is the one who will lead the party to renewal and reform."
There has also been criticism that the personnel decisions are far from what one would expect.