Jung Chung-rae urges voters who profited from a rising Kospi to back Democratic Party candidate No. 1, calls Yoon, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye the 'prison trio'; Jang Dong-hyeok criticizes Lee Jae Myung for posting about the stock market during a deadly fire, calls Jung's remarks arrogant

Jung Chung-rae, general standing campaign committee chairman of the Democratic Party of Korea, left, and Jang Dong-hyeok, standing campaign committee chairman of the People Power Party. [Yonhap]
Jung Chung-rae, general standing campaign committee chairman of the Democratic Party of Korea, left, and Jang Dong-hyeok, standing campaign committee chairman of the People Power Party. [Yonhap]

The ruling and opposition parties' campaign chiefs spent the June 3 local elections campaign period focused on rallying their respective bases — the Democratic Party around a message of punishing "insurrection and corrupt forces," and the People Power Party around punishing what it called an "arrogant administration."

Jung Chung-rae, general standing campaign committee chairman of the Democratic Party of Korea, highlighted the achievements of the Lee Jae Myung government — including a buoyant stock market — while directing critical messages at former Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye for campaigning on behalf of the opposition.

On May 29, the first day of early voting, Jung told a central campaign committee meeting at Seoul mayoral candidate Jung Won-oh's campaign office in Jung-gu, Seoul: "If you have made a profit in your stock account thanks to the rising Kospi, or if you feel pleased when you look at your stock account, I ask that you cast your vote for Democratic Party candidate No. 1."

Appearing on the YouTube channel "Kim Eojun's Humility Is Hard News Factory" on May 28, he described the election as "a contest between forces rallying the progressive bloc out of the conviction that a bad result would spell serious trouble for President Lee," adding that "the June 3 local elections will be an election that empowers President Lee and protects him."

At a central campaign committee meeting in Cheonan on June 1, two days before the main vote, Jung again labeled former Presidents Yoon Suk Yeol, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye the "prison trio," saying they "are denying and destabilizing President Lee" and "trying to drag South Korea backward into the past."

"The entry of Yoon Suk Yeol, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye into the campaign is an insult to the people," he said. "We must send the prison trio into the pages of history."

Jang Dong-hyeok, standing campaign committee chairman of the People Power Party, also kept up a steady drumbeat of attacks against the government as he appealed for support.

In a Facebook post on June 1, Jang said Lee Jae Myung had been "posting about the stock market on social media even as workers were dying in the flames," referring to a deadly industrial fire. "Is rebutting a report about semiconductor concentration in the stock market more urgent and more important than responding to an explosion?" he said.

Turning to Jung's remarks about stock accounts, Jang called them "truly arrogant comments that show contempt for the people." "Only 20 percent of stocks in the market have gone up," he said. "He does not even glance at the grief of the 80 percent of investors whose holdings have fallen."

On May 31, Jang also said that "giving up on voting means giving Lee Jae Myung the chance to have his trial canceled," urging voters to go to the polls to ensure Lee's trial resumes.

Against Democratic Party candidates, Jang ran a series of posts he called "Know Your Candidate — Straight Facts," raising various allegations. Watching the televised debates, he said, "I could clearly see why Gag Concert went off the air. You cannot tell whether these people came out to do politics or to make people laugh. We can never entrust our local governments and people's lives to characters like these."

On the economy, Jang said on May 28 that the government had "no ability to create jobs, so it simply looks the other way," adding that "the only thing it has managed to do is create Lee Jae Myung brand government odd jobs — investigating tax delinquents and surveying farmland conditions."

On the Starbucks controversy, Jang said the government had "unilaterally stripped senior citizens of opportunities they could have enjoyed, simply because it dislikes Starbucks." He drew a parallel with past anti-Japanese boycotts, saying that when the Uniqlo boycott was driven by anti-Japan campaigns, "it was the young people working at Uniqlo who suffered the harm. Today, young people working at Starbucks stores are taking undeserved damage."


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