Jeong Jeom-sik calls move 'irresponsible,' says national audit has become 'impeachment audit'

PPP floor leader urges review of wartime operational control transfer timeline

People Power Party Floor Leader Jeong Jeom-sik speaks at a press briefing on national audit issues at the National Assembly on Sunday. [Yonhap]
People Power Party Floor Leader Jeong Jeom-sik speaks at a press briefing on national audit issues at the National Assembly on Sunday. [Yonhap]

People Power Party Floor Leader Jeong Jeom-sik urged Democratic Party of Korea leader Kim Min-seok on Sunday to quickly reach a decision on whether to pursue the impeachment of Chief Justice Jo Hee-dae. Jeong also criticized Kim for turning the national audit into what he called an "impeachment audit" that goes beyond partisan political squabbling.

Speaking at a press briefing at the National Assembly, Jeong said prolonging the uncertainty while weighing only the political costs of whether to impeach was "an extremely irresponsible act for a ruling party." He added: "Do not hold the fate of the judiciary and the Republic of Korea hostage to your political calculations."

Jeong said Kim had gone beyond staging a politically charged national audit and was now turning it into an "impeachment audit." "With the ruling party leader officially declaring that he will discuss the impeachment of the chief justice, the entire national audit is being sucked into an impeachment black hole," he said.

Jeong said the ruling party's falling approval rating stemmed from "the collapse of people's livelihoods, diplomatic disarray and personnel disasters." He said Kim had pulled out the impeachment card to rally his base amid a crisis of the party's own making, adding that Kim was seeking to use impeachment — an emergency measure — to reverse the approval rating slide rather than addressing the crisis through policy and competence.

Jeong said the mere fact that the leader of the largest ruling party had made the pursuit of the chief justice's impeachment official carried enormous weight — "in effect no different from having already filed an impeachment motion." He said Kim must bear serious responsibility for his words, and vowed that the PPP would "use every means available to block the impeachment motion and the impeachment itself."

On the transfer of wartime operational control, Jeong said the handover "must be based on capability, not on a timeline," urging the ruling party and government to stop trying to force the transfer to fit the president's term schedule and to review the timetable through sufficient consultations with the United States.

He said it was "extremely dangerous" to throw around emotional slogans and scheme to use the transfer as a political achievement within the current term. "This government's amateurish recklessness must not be allowed to ruin national security as well," he said.


ken@heraldcorp.com