Jang Dong-hyeok: Lee reached out only to the left
Im Yi-ja: Lee's message was ultimately 'I did nothing wrong'
The People Power Party on Friday slammed President Lee Jae Myung's press conference as "verbal acrobatics," reserving particular sharpness for his remarks on a second term, asking whether "a clear declaration of 'I will not seek re-election' is really so difficult."
PPP leader Jang Dong-hyeok said on Facebook that Lee "claimed to be the president of all, yet reached out only to the left," adding that Lee had declared only those aligned with the pro-Moon, pro-Roh and pro-Kim Dae-jung factions to be "comrades of Lee Jae Myung." "It appears the goal is not national unity but left-wing unity," Jang said.
Jang also said Lee had pledged to address the dismantling of the prosecution and the abolition of supplementary investigative powers through "police reform," calling the claim "absurd given that he has not even appointed a national police chief."
He added that Lee said he would pursue a so-called special prosecutor probe into alleged indictment manipulation — stopping short of dropping charges — while still portraying himself as "a victim of political investigation." "In the illegal inter-Korean funds transfer case, the Daejang-dong case and the Baekhyeon-dong case, all accomplices were convicted," Jang said. "In his own election law violation case, the Supreme Court in effect handed down a guilty verdict."
"If President Lee Jae Myung truly feels wronged, there would be no one left in prison," Jang said, adding that Lee had faulted Kim Seung-won for failing to reach a "final conclusion." "Ultimately, he has not let go of his desire to drop the charges," Jang said.
Jang also said Lee had confirmed he had "no intention whatsoever of changing real estate policy," characterizing the surge in home prices across the Greater Seoul area as a "flattening of prices," blaming the supply shortage on others and rising prices on loans. On the single-stock leveraged ETF controversy, Jang quoted Lee as saying "someone must have made the decision," and said Lee showed "absolutely no intention of taking responsibility" for the 54 trillion won ($39.1 billion) in losses suffered by the public.
PPP policy committee chairwoman Im Yi-ja said she had hoped the president would "listen to the public's voice, acknowledge flawed policies and commit to changing the direction of economic policy." "But the president's answer on Friday was ultimately: 'I did nothing wrong,'" she said.
Im said that "while the public worries about policy, the president insists there is no problem and blames others when results are bad," adding that "the Lee Jae Myung administration has no intention at all of changing its current failed economic policy direction."
"If the government will not change, the People Power Party will," she said, pledging to put forward measures to shift real estate policy toward expanding supply and normalizing the market rather than relying on regulation and taxes, to reform capital market policy by properly identifying the causes of policy failure and protecting investors rather than shifting responsibility onto them, and to move fiscal policy toward responsible management of both inflation and national debt rather than indiscriminate spending.
mp1256@heraldcorp.com
