Regarding the Appointment of Ahn Gyu-baek as Public Relations Committee Chair... Lee Won-wook Calls It a "Cunning Tangpyeong Strategy"

"An Gyu-baek is Pro-Ming... A Well-Known Story"

The Democratic Party of Korea appointed four-term lawmaker Ahn Gyu-baek, a member of the 'Jung Se-kyun faction,' as the chairman of the Strategic Nomination Management Committee to discuss the direction of strategic nominations for next year's parliamentary general election. However, Lee Won-wook, a member of the Democratic Party from the non-Jung Se-kyun reform faction, criticized this as a "cunning balancing strategy."

On the 8th, Lee said on his social media service (SNS), "Representative Lee's appointment of Chairman Ahn is not a factional balance," expressing this view.

Lee Won-wook, Member of the Democratic Party of Korea./Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

On the same day, the Democratic Party appointed Ahn as the chairman of the Strategic Nomination Management Committee, citing among the reasons that "he has no faction." However, Lee stated, "The appointment of Chairman Ahn, presented as one of the balancing strategies, is not a balance but an appointment of a pro-Lee Jae-myung figure who shifted from the Jung Se-kyun faction(親明)." He added, "Within the Democratic Party, no one anymore refers to Ahn as part of the Jung Se-kyun faction."

Lee pointed out that Ahn, who was the chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the Party Convention last July, suddenly resigned, saying, "The nominal reason was the hollowing out of the Preparatory Committee's discussions, but in fact, it was because the decision to have 30% of the preliminary primary electorate be general public opinion polls was not reflected in the emergency committee led by Woo Sang-ho during the party convention election process." He added, "It was the result of failing to faithfully implement the demands that the pro-Lee faction had been making. This is a story everyone knows."

He said, "(Chairman Ahn) is already a pro-Lee figure faithfully carrying out the intentions of the pro-Lee faction," and added, "Representative Lee should not pretend to practice intra-party democracy with a cunning balancing strategy. Is this 'cunning politics' that tries to cover up facts everyone knows really Representative Lee's idea of 'unity'?"