"A Kind of Labor Pains in the Process of Transformation"
Kim Young-joo Declares Party Withdrawal... Park Yong-jin and Yoon Young-chan Also Oppose
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, dismissed the ongoing backlash against the notification of the bottom 20% ranking of incumbent lawmakers by saying, "The people want change." He did not comment separately on the controversy surrounding the unclear subject of opinion polls conducted excluding the non-Bimyeong faction incumbents.
After the plenary session at the National Assembly on the 20th, Lee told reporters, "This is a kind of growing pain that occurs during the process of a complete transformation with a new image," adding, "The nomination management committee will make good decisions with excellent figures." Starting from the morning of the previous day, notifications to those ranked at the bottom began, leading Kim Young-joo, the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, to declare his departure from the party. On the same day, lawmakers Park Yong-jin and Yoon Young-chan held protest press conferences rejecting the evaluation results.
Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung is deep in thought at the National Assembly plenary session on the 20th. [Image source=Yonhap News]
Lee said, "Unlike the People Power Party, our party's nominations are fairly conducted according to a system, special party rules, and party constitution that were established a year ago," and added, "Since it is impossible for everyone to be satisfied with the evaluation results, there will naturally be complaints about evaluations that one does not agree with."
He continued, "The people want new politics and changes in the nomination process," and said, "Innovation, as the language and meaning imply, sometimes means the painful process of shedding old skin." He then added, "I ask for understanding that this is an inevitable process for nominations that meet the people's expectations."
When asked if there were criticisms that many from the Bimyeong faction were included in the bottom 20% list, Lee replied, "That is not the case," and said, "It pains me because many people I care about seem to be included." He especially emphasized, "I have no knowledge whatsoever of the contents of the list."
Later, through a post on Facebook, Lee wrote, "For new shoots to grow, the buds must wither, and the first branches must yield to the next for a big tree to grow?this is the law of nature," and said, "Direct all resentment to me as the leader." This reaffirmed his determination to carry out a shake-up despite the backlash.
Meanwhile, Kwon Chil-seung, the chief spokesperson, stated in a briefing, "The evaluation of the 21st National Assembly members was conducted by applying the same system used for the 20th National Assembly members four years ago," and refuted claims that the evaluation was politically motivated. He also disclosed detailed scoring by item, saying, "The evaluation items that influenced the results included the number of plenary session questions, attendance rates at plenary and standing committee sessions, multi-faceted peer evaluations (relative evaluations), and opinion polls of voters in the respective districts," adding, "Since the ranking was decided by a narrow margin, these performances had an impact."
Meanwhile, Im Hyuk-baek, chairman of the Democratic Party's nomination management committee, began individually notifying those ranked at the bottom from the morning of the previous day. Incumbents in the bottom 20% will have 20% deducted from their primary election vote counts, and those in the lowest 10% will have 30% deducted. Because of this, those in the lowest 10% are effectively considered 'excluded from nomination.'
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