People Power Party lawmaker Na Kyung-won [Yonhap]
People Power Party lawmaker Na Kyung-won [Yonhap]

People Power Party lawmaker Na Kyung-won said Monday that "South Korea's capital market has become a laughingstock in global financial markets."

Writing on Facebook that day, Na cited Reuters' characterization of the Korean stock market as having "turned into a lawless casino" and Bloomberg's warning that the Lee Jae Myung administration's incompetence had brought on a political crisis.

She added that the Kospi had plunged nearly 30 percent from its peak, and that within a month of single-stock leveraged ETFs being listed, trading curbs known as sidecars had been triggered 19 times and circuit breakers five times. "Today, sell-side sidecars were triggered on both the Kospi and Kosdaq," she said.

Na went on to call the situation "an obvious case of government-directed disaster and man-made crisis, jointly engineered by Cheong Wa Dae and financial regulators." She claimed that President Lee Jae Myung and presidential policy chief Kim Yong-beom — the officials ultimately responsible for setting up the reckless product — were "standing by like spectators watching a fire across the river" as the assets of 14 million retail investors collapsed.

Na said that despite "the tears of the public and criticism from foreign media," the officials were still evading responsibility with "complacent sophistry." She urged President Lee to immediately remove Kim from his post and "prostrate himself in apology before the 14 million investors and the public."

She also urged that a parliamentary investigation and special prosecutor be launched to "thoroughly expose the full circumstances of Cheong Wa Dae's hasty introduction and approval of leveraged ETFs," and called for a comprehensive probe into losses suffered by the public as a result of the administration's policy failure, as well as active consideration of a state damages lawsuit against the government.


mp1256@heraldcorp.com