Yoon Jae-ok: "If No Candidates for Floor Leader Election, It Must Be Postponed"

Ruling Party Passing Criticism Met with "Difficult to Agree"

Yoon Jae-ok, Floor Leader of the People Power Party and Acting Party Leader, is speaking at the Floor Countermeasure Meeting held at the National Assembly on the 30th. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

Yoon Jae-ok, Acting Leader of the People Power Party, expressed that if there are no candidates in the upcoming floor leader election, the election will have to be postponed.

After the floor strategy meeting held at the National Assembly on the 30th, Acting Leader Yoon told reporters, "Tomorrow is the (candidate) registration day, and if no one registers, we have no choice but to postpone it." The People Power Party will begin accepting candidate registration applications from tomorrow to hold the next floor leader election scheduled for the 3rd of next month. However, no lawmakers have yet expressed their intention to run. Lawmakers Kim Do-eup and Kim Seong-won, who were considered strong candidates, have announced they will not run, and 'pro-Yoon' lawmaker Lee Cheol-gyu is being mentioned. Lee has not directly expressed his intention to run either.

Regarding the criticism that the People Power Party was 'passed over' during the progress of the leadership meeting held the day before, Acting Leader Yoon said, "At the working-level negotiation stage of the leadership meeting, the negotiation situation was shared, and I was fully informed of yesterday's negotiation results," adding, "They claim we were passed over, but if I insisted on participating when the president and opposition leaders meet to cooperate, would the meeting have been possible?"

He stated, "For the success of the cooperation meeting, the ruling party shares the situation and discusses it among themselves, but if I had insisted on joining, this meeting would have been difficult to hold," and "I thought the success of the meeting was important, so I decided the party's position according to the situation." He expressed difficulty in agreeing with the ruling party passing criticism voiced by some.