[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyemin] On the 29th, the People Power Party criticized the Democratic Party of Korea for deciding to determine whether to nominate candidates for next year's Seoul and Busan mayoral by-elections through a party-wide vote, effectively announcing their nomination policy, calling it a "cowardly act."
Hwang Kyuhwan, deputy spokesperson of the People Power Party, said in a statement that "they have abandoned even the minimum decency toward the people."
He sharpened his criticism, saying, "They are breaking the party constitution and effectively planning to field candidates. Is this another case where they think 'criticism will be temporary,' just like when they broke their promise to the people not to create a proportional party through a party-wide vote?"
Deputy spokesperson Hwang shot back, "Was this why they so thoroughly ignored the demand for the adoption of witnesses related to former Mayors Park Won-soon and Oh Keo-don at the National Assembly's Women and Family Committee?"
He added, "Do they think a party-wide vote is a cure-all? The Democratic Party's behavior of trying to package 'the will of the party members' as if it were 'the will of the people' is cowardly. They should just be honest and say they must field candidates."
Hwang emphasized, "The Democratic Party, which rammed through the election law?the rules of the game?according to their own interests and now wants to arbitrarily revise the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials Act, which was supposed to guarantee the opposition's veto power, seems to think ignoring the party constitution is no big deal. If Representative Lee Nak-yeon sincerely wants to fulfill the 'duty of a political party' and truly apologize to the people, they should not field candidates."
He added, "If they break their promise to the people and push through the nomination until the end, the people will judge them."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
