SEOUL -- South Korea's progressive Democratic Party, which suffered a major defeat in local elections on June 1, is in turmoil now that its new 26-year-old co-chair has picked a fight with key Democrats who catapulted into office after taking part in the 1980s student movement.

In another division, those who do have a 1980s pedigree are resentful of one party member who won big on election day.

It's enough to persuade observers to begin whispering about a political realignment, despite the Democrats still holding a majority of seats in the National Assembly.

In the local polls, conservatives who support the administration of new President Yoon Suk-yeol won contests for top executive posts and legislative positions in major cities. Results were finalized the next day, and the leadership of the Democratic Party resigned en masse later on June 2.

The cause of the rout was clear. Just before the conservatives took over on the national level, a bill to strip prosecutors of their investigative powers was railroaded through the legislature. In the process, allegations of sexual harassment by lawmakers surfaced.

Veteran legislators and their supporters also objected to Park Ji-hyun, the young party co-chair who called for the student movement generation to retire.

That puts the party in a difficult position, unable to turn out its supporters in crucial elections -- many progressive voters apparently stayed home rather than vote in the recent polls.

Voter turnout in the southwestern city of Gwangju, the Democrats' stronghold, was 37.7%, the lowest in the nation.

Ballots are cast at a polling station in Seoul on June 1, when the Democrats largely failed to turn their voters out.   © AP

Then a leadership struggle broke out during an emergency party meeting on June 3. During the four-hour fracas, participants hurled criticism at Lee Jae-myung, the former presidential candidate who had won a by-election to the National Assembly on the same day as the local elections.

While leading the party's campaign in the local elections, Lee also ran for a seat from the city of Incheon.

The headwinds stymying the party were whipped into gale-force blasts by a pledge to relocate Gimpo Airport, near Seoul, much to the displeasure of the city's residents.

Former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon openly criticized Lee Jae-myung on social media, saying, "Even though he lost the presidential election, he went into the local elections as if nothing had happened."

The jabs coming from all sides are Act 1 of a drama that will conclude in August with a party leadership election. Whoever wins the voting will determine who the party endorses as candidates for National Assembly elections in 2024. The winner will also start paving the way to the next presidential election, in five years.

On his first day as a lawmaker on June 7, Lee Jae-myung was asked by reporters for his thoughts on the leadership election. He answered with an evasive, "I haven't thought very deeply about it."

All of Lee's peers in the National Assembly are aware of his ambitions. If he does nothing, Lee, who does not represent the mainstream of his party, will be left isolated by the more powerful supporters of former President Moon Jae-in.

Lee Jae-myung at a campaign rally in Incheon. He ran in a by-election for parliament the same day he led the rest of his party to an electoral drubbing.

The pro-Moon faction is on high alert. Even though they are numerically strong, they have no promising candidates for the leadership election. Some of Moon's most successful aides, including former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, who was disgraced in a scandal involving his daughter's fraudulent university entrance examinations, are either on trial or in prison.

With the lack of mainstream candidates putting Lee in pole position in the party's leadership race, many party elders harbor deep resentment toward him because he did not participate in the student movements, considered a badge of honor by most party members. "If Lee Jae-myung becomes leader," one pro-Moon lawmaker said, "the party will split."

Conservatives in the National Assembly are watching the infighting in the numerically superior opposition with bated breath.

In South Korea, lawmakers in the National Assembly serve four-year terms, while the president serves for five years. As a result, many past governments hailed from a political bloc with a minority of seats in the National Assembly. Most overcame this by winning over voters in subsequent legislative elections. In one case, a political realignment ensued.

In 1987, Roh Tae-woo won the first presidential election after South Korea democratized. Having to work with a minority in the National Assembly, Roh eventually engineered a merger of his Democratic Justice Party with Kim Young-sam's Reunification Democratic Party and Kim Jong-pil's New Democratic Republican Party. Thus a massive ruling party was born.

Roh Tae-woo takes the oath as president in Seoul in 1988. Saddled with a minority government, he went on to create a massive ruling party. (Yonhap/Kyodo)

With the Democrats in disarray, there is also the question of what President Yoon will do. The opposition's National Assembly numbers are so great that the conservatives cannot create a majority by bringing smaller parties or independents into the fold. "There are politicians of conscience in the Democratic Party," Yoon said during the presidential campaign. "We will cooperate with the opposition and unify the people."

Yoon will soon launch what he's calling a "national integration committee" that will report directly to the president. It is expected that Kim Han-gil, a key figure in the political realignment, will chair the committee.

The moderate Kim, who was brought into politics by former President Kim Dae-jung, is a progressive but is close to the conservatives. Under the government of former President Park Geun-hye, he led a merger with a party led by Ahn Cheol-soo in an effort to bring the opposition closer to the center.

"A political realignment can't be done artificially," Kim said in April in an interview with a South Korean newspaper. "It must be allowed to ripen until the time is right."

In the meantime, Yoon is crouching, waiting to pounce, should the huge but divided opposition camp present him an opportunity to stabilize his administration.