Lee Jun-seok, the Reform Party's chief election campaign committee chairman, on Tuesday appealed to voters in the Pyeongtaek-B parliamentary by-election in Gyeonggi Province, urging them to support People Power Party candidate Yoo Eui-dong.
"Please help Yoo Eui-dong of the People Power Party get another chance to work in the National Assembly so that Pyeongtaek's Godeok International New City and Dongtan can join hands and develop together," Lee said.
Lee, who represents Hwaseong-B in Gyeonggi Province, a constituency that includes Dongtan New City, wrote on his Facebook page: "Not as the leader of the Reform Party, but as a lawmaker who must prevent the forced relocation of the semiconductor industry from southern Gyeonggi and protect the rights of science and engineering professionals and researchers, I make this request, however presumptuous it may seem."
Dongtan and Pyeongtaek share an adjacent living zone, with Samsung Electronics' Hwaseong campus located in Dongtan and its Pyeongtaek campus in Pyeongtaek.
This marks the first time the Reform Party has requested support for a candidate from another party, including the People Power Party. The Reform Party did not field its own candidate in the Pyeongtaek-B by-election. "Candidate Yoo is a person I personally recruited with great effort when I served as policy committee chairman, and we have built trust over a long period of time," Lee said. "He bears no responsibility for the martial law incident or the failures of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration, and he has always spoken his mind even from within."
"Some members of the Democratic Party are floating ideas of relocating the semiconductor belt in southern Gyeonggi to Saemangeum or to South Jeolla Province. The threat is right before us, and I am deeply concerned about whether I can fend it off alone," he added. "If the residents of Pyeongtaek respond, we will have two lawmakers who can solve Pyeongtaek's problems together."
