The People Power Party's floor leadership said Friday that a controversial forum held by lawmaker Lee Jin-suk on the May 18 pro-democracy movement was inappropriate and urged that it not happen again.
Choi Eun-seok, the PPP's chief floor spokesperson, told reporters at the National Assembly that morning that floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik had asked for the forum to be canceled before it was held, but it went ahead anyway. "Floor Leader Jeong considers what happened to be highly inappropriate," Choi said. "We hope it will not recur."
Asked whether the party had known about the forum in advance and simply looked the other way, Choi drew a line. "It was not negligence," he said, adding that the PPP had previously supported enshrining the spirit of May 18 in the constitutional preamble. "The party's position is firm — we must carry forward the democratic spirit of all modern history," he said.
Choi said the party had no way to forcibly stop an individual lawmaker from holding a forum. "The party's official position is that holding a forum on such a subject was an inappropriate act," he added.
Asked whether the matter could be referred to the party's ethics committee, Choi said no clear conclusion had been reached. "We have judged that it was inappropriate, but the party still needs to deliberate on what to do — nothing has been decided regarding the ethics committee," he said.
The forum, held at the National Assembly Library on Thursday, drew criticism after it referred to the May 18 pro-democracy movement as a "riot." Pro-government bloc lawmakers had called for Lee's expulsion and disciplinary action just before the event began.
Lee defended the forum on Facebook, saying the Lee Jae-myung administration had listed enshrining "the spirit of the May 18 Gwangju pro-democracy movement" in the constitutional preamble as its top policy priority. "It makes no sense to say we cannot even hold a debate about May 18 when the government itself wants to put it in the constitution," she wrote. "A movement that champions 'democracy' will end up suppressing freedom of expression."
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