Jeong Jeom-sik: 'Probe personnel manipulation, state interference allegations'

Im Yi-ja: 'We will force a policy course correction'

People Power Party floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik speaks at a national audit strategy meeting at the National Assembly on Friday. [Yonhap]
People Power Party floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik speaks at a national audit strategy meeting at the National Assembly on Friday. [Yonhap]

With the national audit set to begin Tuesday, the People Power Party ramped up its offensive against the ruling camp on Friday, converting its regular floor leadership meeting into a dedicated national audit strategy session with four days to go before the proceedings open.

PPP floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik convened the national audit strategy meeting and said the party was "formally shifting the floor leadership meeting to a national audit strategy meeting and entering full national audit mode." He described this year's audit as one focused on "truth, people's livelihoods and the restoration of hope."

Jeong said the top priority for the audit was establishing the truth behind what he called "field investigations." He said the party would seek to uncover allegations that Kim Hyun-ji and Jeong Jin-sang — described as the closest aides in the Seongnam-Gyeonggi Province inner circle — had manipulated personnel appointments and interfered in state affairs. "If Jeong Jin-sang, a private citizen with no official position, is pulling the strings on personnel and state affairs as rumor has it, that would constitute an extremely serious abuse of power," he said.

The PPP identified its next audit priority as real estate policy. Jeong said the issue stemmed from what he called President Lee Jae Myung's "delusional speculator framing — the notion that stocks are virtuous investment while real estate is wicked speculation." He said the party would "lead the audit with sharp policy questioning over the Lee Jae Myung administration's mishandling of real estate."

Jeong also said scrutinizing the introduction of single-stock leveraged ETFs was a key task. He said the government had moved Kwon Dae-young, the Financial Services Commission vice chairman who bore significant responsibility for introducing the products, to the position of first vice minister at the Ministry of Economy and Finance on Thursday. "It is problematic enough to hand economic policy to someone who set fire to the stock market, but there is strong reason to suspect the move was intended to shield him from questioning at the Assembly's political affairs committee audit," he said.

Jeong said the audit was being held "at the most critical juncture of the Lee Jae Myung administration's second year in office," adding, "The era of expectation and optimism is over — the time for accountability has begun."

He urged lawmakers to prepare "precisely, meticulously and sharply" in their respective standing committees, warning that "the Lee Jae Myung administration will try to block key witness approvals and conceal the truth."

PPP policy committee chairwoman Im Yi-ja said the party would "hold the Lee Jae Myung administration accountable at the national audit for its 10 policy failures and force a change in policy direction."

Im said the public's wishes were "modest and clear — to worry less about grocery prices, to find jobs, to nurture the dream of owning a home and to live safely with their families."

She said that "every policy the Lee Jae Myung administration has put forward has returned nothing but extreme suffering and deep despair for the people," and asked why "innocent citizens must bear the bill for policy failures with their tears and blood."

PPP Secretary-General Jeong Hee-yong announced that the party would hold a public rally in front of Sungnyemun at 3 p.m. Saturday to call for judgment on the Lee Jae Myung administration and the recovery of livelihoods and national security. He said the event would convey "the people's demand to restore livelihoods, protect national security, check the runaway power of the administration and the Democratic Party, and normalize state affairs."


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