Jeong Jeom-sik: 'Truth manipulation to mislead the public'
Im Yi-ja: 'A tyrant privatizing legislative power'
The People Power Party on Friday kept up its sharp criticism of the government and the ruling bloc over the so-called "fabricated indictment" special prosecutor bill, repeatedly calling it "truth manipulation to mislead the public."
People Power Party Floor Leader Jeong Jeom-sik convened a floor strategy meeting at the National Assembly on Friday morning and said the ruling Democratic Party had put the special prosecutor bill — aimed at canceling President Lee Jae Myung's trials — to a plenary vote on a day when both Kospi and Kosdaq plunged more than 5 percent, wiping out the value of ordinary citizens' stock holdings. "This is a bad regime more obsessed with saving one man, President Lee Jae Myung, than with saving the people," Jeong said.
Jeong called the "fabricated indictment" label in the bill's name "a despicable manipulation of the truth." "How can it be a fabricated indictment when false-statement violations were charged as false-statement offenses, perjury solicitation was charged as perjury solicitation, and breach of fiduciary duty was charged as breach of fiduciary duty?" Jeong said. "These were entirely legitimate indictments."
Jeong said the ruling party had gone so far as to erase crimes from the Moon Jae-in administration in order to win cooperation from the so-called "Moon-Jo-Teo-Rae-Yu" camp — political figures who have become adversaries of the Lee administration — calling it "an immoral rewriting of history." He also said the ruling bloc was trying to manufacture a not-guilty verdict in the forced repatriation of North Korean defectors case, which he described as the worst state-violence incident in history and said was already heading toward a final guilty verdict after a suspended sentence at the first trial and a probationary sentence at the second.
"The prosecution-withdrawal special prosecutor that the Lee Jae Myung administration is pushing was born destined to commit three forms of fabrication: manipulation of truth, language and history," Jeong said. "Ultimately, it will not be able to escape judgment by the public and the courts."
People Power Party Policy Committee Chairperson Im Yi-ja said the Democratic Party was trying to ram through a special prosecutor bill to withdraw the charges against President Lee and cancel his trials. "The National Assembly is at a point where there is not a minute to spare in carefully reviewing next year's budget, which is directly tied to people's livelihoods," Im said.
Im said the Democratic Party's intent was obvious. "Their calculation is that if they push it through carelessly while everyone is consumed with the budget review, the public will soon forget," Im said.
"The people of South Korea are not foolish enough to fall for the Democratic Party's shallow scheming," Im said. "The public is watching closely as a tyrant holds people's livelihoods hostage and privatizes legislative power to erase President Lee's personal legal risk."
PPP Secretary-General Jeong Hui-yong referenced a YouTube broadcast by President Lee on Thursday and asked, "Is the Democratic Party listening to and watching the public's criticism, the legal community's concerns and the opposition's voice regarding the prosecution-withdrawal special prosecutor it is unilaterally pushing through — or is it turning a blind eye?"
"Claiming to communicate with the public while closing its ears to the opposition's criticism and checks, and staying silent in the face of the Democratic Party's legislative rampage, cannot be called genuine communication," Jeong said.
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