People Power Party Seoul mayoral candidate Oh Se-hoon, Incheon mayoral candidate Yoo Jeong-bok, and Gyeonggi Province gubernatorial candidate Yang Hyang-ja will meet with Reform Party candidates for metropolitan government positions in the capital region on Friday.
"The opposition bloc candidates in the capital region have agreed to gather at 11:30 a.m. Friday to discuss measures to strongly block the special counsel bill," said Kim Byung-min, spokesperson for Oh's campaign election committee, on Thursday. According to Kim, the meeting will include People Power Party candidates Oh Se-hoon, Yoo Jeong-bok, and Yang Hyang-ja, along with Reform Party Seoul mayoral candidate Kim Jung-chul and Reform Party Gyeonggi gubernatorial candidate Cho Eung-chun.
The candidates agreed to jointly oppose the "Special Counsel Bill on Allegations of Fabricated Investigation and Prosecution under the Yoon Suk-yeol Administration," which the Democratic Party of Korea introduced on October 30. The meeting is expected to produce concrete countermeasures. The gathering follows Reform Party candidate Cho's proposal earlier that morning for a joint conference of metropolitan government candidates across political parties. While the conservative opposition's metropolitan candidates were unable to meet that day due to individual schedules, they reportedly all agreed with the intent.
Meeting with reporters, Oh described the prosecution withdrawal special counsel bill as "an intolerable attempt to turn 21st-century democracy back into an age of barbarism," adding that "it must be stopped." Cho issued a statement saying, "I thank the capital region candidates for their decision to readily accept this proposal for a greater cause despite its sudden nature," and called for efforts to "block this judicial insurrection."
The gathering of the conservative opposition's capital region contenders is drawing attention as it takes place before the launch of the Central Election Committee led by the People Power Party leadership on Monday. "We are reviewing a concept similar to forming a kind of 'joint capital region election committee,'" a People Power Party official said.
