Song Eon-seok, floor leader of the People Power Party (PPP), reaffirmed on Wednesday that "opposition to a constitutional amendment before local elections has been confirmed as our party's official position."
Song made the remarks at a general meeting of party lawmakers. "Some say supporting the amendment would help with the impeachment process, but the logic that opposing the amendment equals supporting the martial law declaration, and supporting the amendment equals opposing martial law, is utterly absurd," he said. "We wouldn't call it rejection of the presidential election result just because we oppose the Yellow Envelope Act or the 26 trillion won populist supplementary budget bill, would we?" he added.
Song expressed concern that "National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik and the Democratic Party of Korea are poised to push the amendment process through by force without bipartisan agreement." He noted, "There are reports that instructions to 'prepare for a national referendum' have been issued to diplomatic missions around the world. If this is true, it is a very serious situation."
The floor leader criticized, "As you all know, constitutional amendments that were pushed through in our constitutional history by trampling on the opposition party's objections without bipartisan consensus include the Sasaoip amendment, the three-term amendment, and the October Yusin." He added, "History does not record these as 'constitutional amendments' — it records them as 'dictatorship.'"
Song continued, "Our party does not oppose constitutional amendment itself. We oppose an 'election amendment.'" He pointed out, "If a constitutional amendment is timed to coincide with an election, that election becomes an 'amendment election' because the amendment absorbs everything like a black hole." He warned, "If amendments are pushed through one by one in this manner at every future election, all elections going forward will inevitably be sucked into the amendment issue."