Kang Seung-woo is the Business Desk editor at The Korea Times. Prior to this position, he covered politics, national affairs, finance and sports.
Opposition leader under fire for flip-flopping on COVID relief fund
Lee Jun-seok, left, chairman of the main opposition People Power Party, answers questions from reporters at the National Assembly in Seoul, Tuesday. Yonhap
By Kang Seung-woo
By Kang Seung-woo
Lee Jun-seok, chairman of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP), is in the hot seat for backpedaling in less than two hours on an agreement with his ruling party counterpart to provide COVID-19 relief money to all citizens.
On Monday, ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) Chairman Rep. Song Young-gil and Lee met and agreed to provide emergency relief funds to all citizens regardless of their financial status, according to their respective spokespeople. The government and the ruling party had initially decided to provide the relief money only to those outside the top-20 percent income bracket.
However, the agreement was short-lived as PPP spokeswoman Hwangbo Seung-hee corrected her previous wording, saying the two leaders agreed to review the need to first use the extra budget to expand support for pandemic-hit small business owners and, if there is money left over, review the need to expand the handouts to all citizens. It was an apparent withdrawal from the agreement announced just one hour and 40 minutes earlier.
The reversal came because, as soon as the news about the agreement broke, some PPP members immediately objected to Lee, who had changed the party's stance of selective payouts without consulting its lawmakers.
“Despite promising to operate the party in a democratic fashion, Lee acted like an imperial leader, disregarding the party philosophy,” Rep. Yun Hee-suk said on Facebook, Monday night.
She reiterated her criticism of Lee, Tuesday, saying he ruined the PPP's stance of opposing the ruling party's plan to shower money on the public.
Jeju Governor Won Hee-ryong also said, “I am disappointed by Lee's decision, given that he agreed to what the DPK wanted. DPK Chairman Song may make fun of the PPP.”
The ruling party, particularly its presidential hopefuls, did not waste the opportunity to bash Lee, urging him to make a public apology.
“Although it is very common in political circles that any agreements are easily breached, the reversal is not the right thing to do for either the public or the rival party,” Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung said on Facebook, Tuesday. The governor is the leading presidential contender within the ruling bloc.
“It cannot happen if the PPP respects the people as sovereigns. Internal complaints should be eased within the party,” he added.
Choo Mi-ae, a former justice minister, said the administration of state affairs is not a joke, while Rep. Lee Nak-yon, a former prime minister, criticized the PPP leader for throwing the people into confusion.
In response to the growing criticism, Lee said in a radio interview, Tuesday, that due to the stricter social distancing rules, he and Song had to discuss the issue without their respective spokespeople, which prevented him from delivering the details precisely to his spokesperson.