"Yong has stoked gender conflict between men and women in their 20s and 30s"

"She will be a 'gender discrimination minister,' not a gender equality minister"

People Power Party lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo [Yonhap]
People Power Party lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo [Yonhap]

People Power Party lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo on Monday criticized the nomination of Basic Income Party lawmaker Yong Hye-in as minister of gender equality and family, calling it a "self-destruct card that will bring down the Lee Jae Myung government."

Writing on his Facebook page, Ahn said President Lee Jae Myung had nominated Yong, describing her as a "fresh and fitting choice," but added that the nominee had secured a proportional-representation seat twice in a row through what he called favoritism from the Democratic Party. "She is a silver-spoon lawmaker who has worn a proportional badge twice thanks to Democratic Party handouts," he said.

Ahn said Yong was "acting like an aristocrat" by declaring she would retain her proportional-representation seat even after becoming a minister. "The nominee has built her political career feeding on hatred and division throughout her tenure," he said.

Ahn took aim at Yong's past remarks, saying she had "opposed policies granting benefits for military service as 'gender discrimination that shrinks women's share of the pie,' declared that 'the discourse around men in their 20s is extremely dangerous,' and used all manner of language — including phrases like 'as if she swallowed five billion of them' — to stoke gender conflict between young men and women."

He also said she had "provoked hostility over sexual issues — including abolishing the military criminal code's punishment of same-sex acts and indirectly legalizing same-sex marriage — drawing backlash from religious and civic communities."

"Placing such a nominee in a ministerial post that should be mediating social disagreements and leading national unity will inevitably produce not a gender equality minister but a 'gender discrimination minister' who churns out divisive regulations and squanders taxpayer money," Ahn said. "Ultimately, nominee Yong will be a self-destruct card that brings down the Lee Jae Myung government. She will provoke public outrage and drag the ruling party into a quagmire from which even damage control will be impossible."

Ahn pressed the government to withdraw the nomination. "There is still time to walk it back, so I urge them to do so quickly," he said, warning that if the administration continued to go against public sentiment, "the leading digit of President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating will hit 2 in the near future."


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