'National pension losses demand special prosecutor, parliamentary investigation'
The People Power Party ramped up its attacks on President Lee Jae Myung on Thursday as the national audit neared its close, putting a single-stock leveraged ETF and North Korea's land mine provocations in the crosshairs.
PPP leader Jang Dong-hyeok, speaking at a supreme council meeting, said President Lee had described North Korea's nuclear weapons as a "last line of defense," adding that "the president of South Korea said something that should only come out of Kim Jong-un's mouth."
Jang said North Korea had openly declared it would reinforce nuclear weapons deployments on the front lines and threatened to resume loudspeaker broadcasts against the South. "Yet our own military suffered soldiers losing their feet to land mines and could not take a single countermeasure," he said.
"North Korea's last line of defense is neither land mines nor nuclear weapons," Jang said. "The last line of defense North Korea has hidden away is President Lee." He added that the president had not said a word about Iran firing a missile at a South Korean vessel, while withdrawing diplomatic staff from Ukraine — the country that returned North Korean prisoners of war.
Jang also cited losses from a single-stock leveraged ETF tied to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, saying it had collapsed more than 70 percent from its listing price and that losses would only grow. "When asked about a response, the president said government intervention was difficult — which is effectively saying there is no plan," he said.
On the national pension fund's rebalancing, Jang said the government had mobilized the fund wholesale to prop up the stock market ahead of local elections, suspending rebalancing and sharply raising the target allocation for domestic equities. "That is something only a presidential decision could make possible," he said. He added that 182 trillion won ($137 billion) of the national pension — the retirement savings of the Korean people — had evaporated, and that it was hard to predict how much more would be lost.
Jang renewed his call for a special prosecutor and a parliamentary investigation. "If the national pension was illegally mobilized, that is also clear grounds for impeachment and a serious crime," he said. "This administration has plundered tens of trillions of won from the people's accounts. We must launch a parliamentary investigation and appoint a special prosecutor before it is too late."
On the controversy surrounding President Lee's use of the AI tool Gemini, Jang said Lee had cited Gemini's characterization of his position as "unconstitutional deterrence" and was "lost in a solo victory lap." "He used to say social media was his lifeline — now he is begging an AI for validation," Jang said.
Jang said the president appeared entirely at ease while "the people are gasping under soaring housing prices and chaos in the jeonse and monthly rent market."
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