People Power Party floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik said Tuesday that the Democratic Party had been openly threatening to seize all 18 standing committee chairmanships, and told the party to go ahead and take them.
Speaking at a floor strategy meeting at the National Assembly, Jeong said: "If the Democratic Party insists on taking all 18 standing committees, then go ahead — amend the National Assembly Act on your own to let the largest floor party monopolize all 18 committee chair posts, and take them."
He added that the PPP would then participate in the standing committees as members. "Stop deceiving people into thinking negotiations exist when what is actually happening is not negotiation but threats, or meaningless stalling," he said.
On a special prosecutor probe into the National Election Commission, Jeong said that in the 14 years since the 2012 Naegok-dong special prosecutor, nearly every such appointment had been made on the recommendation of floor parties. "Special prosecutors that showed a strong will to investigate — such as the Druking special prosecutor — were always recommended by the opposition party," he said.
He urged that the same approach be taken for the current probe into alleged violations of citizens' voting rights on June 3. "The No. 1 investigation target is Wi Cheol-hwan, the acting NEC chair and a personal friend of President Lee Jae-myung whom Lee appointed as an NEC commissioner, and the No. 2 target is the Ministry of Interior and Safety under the Lee Jae-myung administration, which in effect abandoned its election support duties," Jeong said. "Rather than mechanical neutrality through a third-party recommendation, the NEC's cartel with the Democratic Party must be rigorously investigated through an opposition-recommended special prosecutor."
Turning to Monday's sharp drop in the Kospi, Jeong said the situation had reached a point where people were complaining of dizziness. "The circuit breaker — which halts all stock trading for a set period when the market crashes — was triggered six times from 2000 through last year. This year alone, it has already been triggered seven times as of yesterday," he said.
Jeong said the government had itself contributed to instability in the stock market. "The reckless introduction of single-stock leveraged ETFs for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix was the worst possible decision — one that turned the stock market into an abnormal casino," he said.
He questioned how the government could tackle harder problems such as housing prices, exchange rates and inflation given what he called its incompetence, and called for the dismissal of Kim Yong-beom, the presidential chief policy secretary.
mp1256@heraldcorp.com
