Cheon Ha-ram Who Met Lee Jun-seok: "The Presidential Election Crisis Is Serious... Unlikely to Go to Seoul Easily"

Lee Jun-seok, Leader of the People Power Party (Photo by Yonhap News)

[Asia Economy Reporter Geum Bo-ryeong] Cheon Ha-ram, the head of the People Power Party’s Suncheon Gap district committee, who met Lee Jun-seok, the party leader, in Suncheon, said, "It seemed that (Leader Lee) had no intention of easily going up to Seoul as long as the sense of crisis was not resolved."

On the 2nd, Cheon said on MBC Radio's 'Kim Jong-bae's Focus' program, "(Leader Lee) seems to think that some conditions need to be met to a certain extent, at least enough to win the presidential election or for the leader, the candidate, and the entire party to work well together," explaining this.

Leader Lee went into hiding after posting on Facebook on the evening of the 29th of last month, saying, "^^Then this is it." On the 30th, he visited Busan, and the day before, he met with Cheon in Suncheon.

Cheon explained that Leader Lee’s disappearance was due to a "sense of crisis." He judged that with the current direction and personnel of Yoon Seok-yeol’s People Power Party presidential campaign committee, they could not win the presidential election. Cheon said, "Regarding the direction, to put it simply, they are running an Ahn Cheol-soo-style campaign trying to catch all rabbits without proper targeting or concept. For example, they think, 'Since Lee Jun-seok is holding onto 2030 males, if we bring in Professor Lee Soo-jung, we can also capture 2030 females,' which is a complacent thought. Because of this, they do not even consider why 2030 males have various veto sentiments toward the professor."

Cheon said, "(Leader Lee) was deeply concerned about whether the current personnel appointments are appropriate for a swift and accurate election campaign, and whether so-called flies or hyenas are blocking the candidate’s eyes and ears."

He added, "In fact, there was considerable dissatisfaction about the failure to appoint former emergency committee chairman Kim Jong-in as the overall head. Especially recently, Yoon’s core aides (Yoon Hae-gwan) have been stirring up intra-party conflicts through anonymous interviews and leading the election campaign in a strange direction, which also caused a strong sense of crisis."

When asked whether Candidate Yoon and Leader Lee are communicating, he replied, "Probably not directly. Candidate Yoon has stated that he is not contacting directly, and Leader Lee has turned off his phone, but the phones of those accompanying him are ringing nonstop. I am not sure yet whether there is very practical or deep communication."