Jang Dong-hyeok says special prosecutor must be one recommended by PPP

People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok speaks at a supreme council meeting at the National Assembly on Monday. [Yonhap]
People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok speaks at a supreme council meeting at the National Assembly on Monday. [Yonhap]

By Jung Seok-jun, The Herald Business

People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok said Monday that a re-election must take priority over a special prosecutor investigation, which in turn must come before any parliamentary investigation, in response to the unprecedented ballot shortage crisis.

Speaking at a supreme council meeting at the National Assembly, Jang said the public's demand is for a re-election. "Even among Democratic Party lawmakers, there are calls for a re-election in constituencies where the ballot shortage occurred," he said.

Jang said ballots were transferred on election day to 67 polling stations, and actual voting delays occurred at 22 of them. "Most of these were areas where the PPP held an advantage, meaning results could easily have been reversed in close races," he said. "This is not just a problem for regional government heads — it affects ward council members, provincial assembly members, ward heads, ward proportional seats and provincial proportional seats alike."

On President Lee Jae-myung and the Democratic Party criticizing the National Election Commission, Jang said they were the ones who created the all-powerful commission in the first place. "It was the Democratic Party that even drafted a bill making it a 10-year prison offense to criticize the election commission," he said. "When the 2023 election commission family-hiring scandal broke, it was Lee Jae-myung and the Democratic Party who accused the PPP of demonizing the commission and rushed to defend it."

He added that the Democratic Party had blocked both a Board of Audit and Inspection audit and a police investigation, insisting only on a parliamentary probe. "That is why it is hard to take the Democratic Party's current calls for a parliamentary investigation seriously," he said. "If there is to be one, the PPP must lead everything from the chairmanship to witness selection. If the Democratic Party tries to run it the way it ran the parliamentary investigation into the cancellation of Lee Jae-myung's trial — picking witnesses and steering proceedings as it pleases — such an investigation would be worthless."

On President Lee's order Sunday for prosecutors and police to form a joint investigation unit, Jang said it was nonsensical to bring in prosecutors with only four months left before the agency is abolished. "Is the instruction to wrap up this grave case in four months? That is effectively an order not to investigate at all," he said. "Lee Jae-myung's joint unit is a vehicle to absolve the election commission, neutralize a parliamentary probe and dodge a special prosecutor. A special prosecutor is the only way forward."

He went on to say the investigation must be handed to a proper "people's special prosecutor" recommended by the PPP — not a "Lee Jae-myung-directed special prosecutor" put forward by the Democratic Party or the Rebuilding Korea Party.

Other participants at the meeting also expressed support for holding a re-election.

Supreme council member Shin Dong-wook said many people who gathered in Jamsil were calling for a revote. "This crisis should not be dismissed as a clerical error by the election commission — it is time for politics to heed and respond to the will of the people," he said.

Supreme council member Kim Jae-won said all legal options, including a revote and re-election, must be considered if public doubts about the fairness and legitimacy of the election remain unresolved. "The PPP must keep fighting until the truth is established and a revote is secured to set democracy right," he said.

Supreme council member Kim Min-su also called for a full nationwide re-election. "To restore the people's lost sovereignty, the tainted and distorted election must be held again in its entirety," he said.

Cho Gwang-han, a supreme council member appointed by Jang, demanded a full re-election along with the abolition of early voting and a criminal investigation into all those involved, including the election commission chairman.


mp1256@heraldcorp.com