Voices either calling for or expressing concern about a potential dissolution of the main conservative People Power Party have grown in recent days.

This comes amid a widening rift within the party over its defeat in the June 3 presidential election, coupled with the looming threat of the special counsel investigations targeting impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol on multiple charges connected to his failed martial law bid.

But an expert expressed skepticism about the scenario of a dissolution, pointing out that only one political party has been disbanded by the Constitutional Court in South Korean history.

The liberal and ruling Democratic Party of Korea's Rep. Park Hong-geun on Wednesday floated the idea of swiftly passing a bill that he drafted in March that would dissolve the “party of a president” convicted of impeachment or treason.

Park, along with several other Democratic Party lawmakers, drafted the bill to amend the Political Parties Act and allow the Ministry of Justice to petition the Constitutional Court to dissolve the party under such circumstances without delay. Under the current law, the Constitutional Court alone has the power to dissolve political parties.

“At the time the bill was drafted, I wasn’t focused on (pushing for) its passage because I had the reasonable expectation that the People Power Party would reflect upon its actions and reform once former President Yoon Suk Yeol was removed from office and the party lost the early election,” Park wrote in a Facebook post.

“With the People Power Party refusing until the end to look back or reform, shouldn’t the National Assembly pass the amendment to the Political Parties Act and (the People Power Party) be dissolved in accordance with (the people's) demand and a legal process?”

Park also denounced snowballing conflicts within the main conservative party.

The People Power Party's interim leader, Kim Yong-tae, has called for reform, including a change to the party line of opposition to Yoon’s impeachment. Last December, a majority of People Power Party lawmakers boycotted the plenary vote on the impeachment motion. Supporters of Yoon within the conservative party, meanwhile, have called for party leadership, including Kim, to step down and take responsibility for the election loss.

The conservative former Mayor of Daegu and political heavyweight Hong Joon-pyo has warned the People Power Party “to brace for” President Lee Jae-myung’s apparent plans to dissolve the party.

“After the Lee Jae-myung administration wraps up the special counsel investigations (against Yoon and his wife Kim Keon Hee) they are expected to launch a process to dissolve the party, so brace for (a situation) where everyone will have to fend for themselves,” Hong wrote Wednesday in a Facebook post.

One of the three special counsel bills approved by Lee on Tuesday mandates a probe into allegations that the People Power Party leadership at the time stood in the way of the Assembly’s move to pass a motion to lift Yoon’s martial law decree early on Dec. 4, 2024.

Observers have expressed concerns this could serve as grounds for the Constitutional Court to approve the dissolution of the party.

However, Park Sang-byeong, a political commentator and professor at Inha University, pointed out that the dissolution of a political party is a process that is “more complicated than it seems on the surface” and that the court would find the leadership’s alleged involvement to be an “insufficient” argument.

"There is expected to be a reform or a rebranding of the party, but it would be difficult for the Constitutional Court to dissolve the People Power Party for the insufficient reasons currently cited by the ruling party," the expert said via phone. "A strong reform and rebranding would be a plausible solution for the People Power Party."

Since the Constitutional Court’s establishment in 1988, it has ordered the dissolution of only one political party -- the far-left Unified Progressive Party -- in 2014. The party, which held five seats in the 300-member Assembly before its disbandment, was accused of plotting a rebellion to establish a pro-communist government aligned with North Korean-style socialism. Several members of the party were eventually convicted of plotting to overthrow the South Korean government in case a war broke out with the North.

Otherwise, in times of crises, both the main liberal and conservative parties have responded by undertaking major reforms and rebranding under new names.