PPP’s Emergency Committee chairman vows not to repeat mistakes of past 5 years

At a National Assembly speech on Thursday, Emergency Committee Chairman Jeong Jin-seok of the ruling People Power Party defined the years under the former Moon Jae-in administration as “lost five years,” vowing not to repeat the failures of five years. About the controversies over the foul language uttered during President Yoon Suk-yeol’s overseas visits, the chairman said the oppositions are not only bashing the president but hurling outright curses at his summit diplomacy.

Chairman Jeong, who wore a tie colored red and blue, each symbolizing the ruling and main opposition parties as a way of stressing the message of cooperation, cited a dramatic fall in contributions to growth by the private sector, mounting energy costs from the phaseout of nuclear power, surging fiscal debts, the weakening ties of ROK-U.S. alliance as the cases of failure under the former Moon administration during his 35-minute speech. “The shift of political power in five years is a testimony to the public urge to render judgment on the remorseless double standards and put the derailed country back on track,” Mr. Jeong added.

While denouncing the opposition Democratic Party of Korea as a “legislative dictatorship that ruins the country,” he left open the possibility of a meeting between President Yoon and Chairman Lee Jae-myung of the opposition party. “There is no reason why the president and the chairman of a majority party should not have a meeting,” Jeong said. “Format does not matter, and snubbing the chairman of the ruling party can be accepted too as long as we can work things out together.”

Emergency committee chairman Jeong likened the first 143 days under the Yoon administration to “a fierce struggle to fix the anomaly of the past,” vowing to come up with effective solutions to tackle the issues of the rising cost of living, regulations, welfare, and national debt. He specifically proposed plans to cut the share of national debts to 50 percent by the end of Yoon’s presidency while expanding the social fund budget by 8.7 trillion won to 74.4 trillion won. Jeong reiterated his plan to drive three-pronged pension, labor, and education reforms and the importance of improving regulation on reconstruction. He also proposed a plan to establish a converged special economic zone to install industrial-academic clusters in five districts, including Yeongnam, Homan regions, Sejong, Gangwon, and Jeju.

About the MBC news that first reported that President Yoon's controversial language was aimed at the United States, Mr. Jeong, a former journalist, said the local news outlet reported the news that could jeopardize national reputation, accusing it of lacking ethics as media and abandoning patriotism.


Dong-Joo Cho djc@donga.com