Beaten, insulted and jostled by an angry crowd, Rhyu Si-min looked about to fall down.

The thin, feeble-looking man grimaced in pain, his glasses broken and clothes torn. But he never let go of his female colleague during the violent scuffles at the central committee meeting of the Unified Progressive Party on Saturday.

The picture of him trying to protect Sim Sang-jeong headlined news media and circulated online. All UPP leaders have resigned, and the party’s image as a representative of the poor and underprivileged has collapsed, leaving it on the verge of breaking up 

Rhyu, however, has received praise from online and on social networks. Comments like “A crisis reveals a person’s real value,” and “He is a politician with his own historic mission” summarized how many have come to view him.

Public admiration is something that increasingly eluded him over his 10 years in politics. Over that time, the former student activist, writer and TV host came to be considered a combative, sarcastic maverick.

“I should reconsider Rhyu, and may become fond of him,” a blogger wrote, summarizing the change in perception.

The brawl erupted after Rhyu, Sim and Cho Joon-ho offered to resign from the leadership and the minority reformers called for a vote, demanding the party be led by a new emergency leadership. They also demanded that controversial figures withdraw from the party’s proportional representative list.

Hard-line mainstreamers, including their student supporters, suddenly raided the platform to thwart the proceedings.

After the scuffle the trio appeared at a news conference and called for the party to start again from the scratch. Rhyu was slightly injured and Cho had a neck brace. Tidy and unharmed, Sim expressed her hearty thanks to her guardian.

Observers say Rhyu is now on track to regain his former reputation as a charismatic political liberal who challenged bureaucratic inertia, money politics and the establishment.

The violence heaped further blame upon the mainstream group and its leader Lee Jung-hee, while offering Rhyu the chance to prove his leadership, observers noted.

Rhyu is former health minister and one of the top aides to the former liberal President Roh Moo-hyun. He was recognized for his pragmatic views and progressive commentary.

But he faced criticism from the liberal camp when he defected from what has become the main opposition Democratic United Party, creating the minority People’s Participation Party.

The politician suffered a further setback when he lost to the ruling party’s Kim Moon-soo in the 2010 Gyeonggi governor by-election.

After the PPP united with other liberal groups to form the UPP last year, Rhyu was always in the shadow of Lee, former chief of the Democratic Labor Party, which held a 55 percent stake in the UPP.

It was when the party was hit by the irregularity scandal that Rhyu stood out.

When the party’s fact-finding committee concluded that the proportional representative election was flawed, Lee and her aide vehemently denied the claims.

Rhyu, on the other hand, abided by the panel’s decision and demanded that his colleagues respect the democratic process.

He also refused his proportional representative seat, stepping down in responsibility for the vote-rigging scandal as one of the party leaders.

“The mainstreamers earlier offered me the party’s presidential candidacy in exchange for forming a covert clique, but I refused,” Rhyu said.

“I could not unite with those who would divide the party into factions based on their own interests.”

Rhyu’s political rise contrasts with the fall of Lee, who used to be among the left-wing’s top public figure, as well as one of the nation’s top female leaders.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)