Kim Yong, former deputy director of the Minjoo Institute and a figure widely regarded as a close confidant of President Lee Jae-myung, has launched a direct attack on Democratic Party (DP) leader Chung Chung-rae over the results of the June 3 local elections. He characterized the party leadership's framing of the outcome as a nationwide victory as complacent and called for accountability over what he described as a strategic failure.
Through his Facebook page on Friday, the former deputy director sharply criticized, "The party leader's perception that this local election was a nationwide victory for the Democratic Party and that the defeat in Seoul is painful is lazy and pervasive, and it differs greatly from public sentiment."
He continued, "This is not the time to be intoxicated by the overall numbers of 12 to 4 and celebrate victory," adding, "We must coolly analyze and address this result, which includes our failure to reclaim the Seoul mayoralty, the biggest battleground, as well as our ceding of strategic strongholds we absolutely should have defended."
He took particular aim at Chung's announcement that he would form a local election evaluation committee and conduct a systematic assessment through the publication of a white paper. The former deputy director rebuked, "The evaluation of the election results is not something to hastily hide behind a 'white paper' or to attribute to systemic problems." He then urged, "The heavy responsibility for the strategic failure and absence must rightly be felt and shouldered with the whole body by the party leader and the leadership," adding, "We must thoroughly reflect and drastically reform."
The former deputy director also attached significance beyond a mere political comeback to the election of People Power Party (PPP) former leader Han Dong-hoon. He raised his voice, saying, "This is not a simple matter. It is the revival of political prosecutors who sought to annihilate the opposition party, and a regression of history that foreshadows the cover-up of fabricated crimes that we worked hard to expose." Spotlighting PPP candidate Choo Kyung-ho's victory in the Daegu mayoral election and the election of lawmakers Lee Jin-sook and Kim Tae-kyu, he asked rhetorically, "This is serious. Should we accept results like these merely as the choice of local residents?"
Within political circles, Kim's harsh criticism is drawing mixed interpretations. He had sought to run for re-election to the National Assembly during this election process but ultimately failed to receive a party nomination. The DP had concluded that nominating him, who faces a Supreme Court ruling on charges of receiving money from a private developer in the Daejang-dong development project, could adversely affect the overall election.
Meanwhile, DP leader Chung expressed his feelings indirectly. On Facebook that day, Chung shared a song titled "I Am a Wind That Stayed Briefly" along with the short phrase, "Sometimes I take a deep breath and look at the sky." Both inside and outside political circles, this is being interpreted as an indirect expression of his complicated feelings over the all-out pressure to resign and the criticism directed at him from within the party.
