The Democratic Party of Korea condemned the People Power Party's decision to file an election challenge on Tuesday, calling it "a clear act of rejecting the election that denies the sacred will of the sovereign people," after the main opposition party moved to contest results in some areas where ballot shortages occurred during the June 3 local elections.
"The People Power Party's surprise challenge has nothing to do with correcting poor election management," chief spokesperson Kang Jun-hyeon said in a written briefing. He criticized the move as "a political maneuver by leader Jang Dong-hyeok to defuse internal pressure to resign following the crushing defeat in the local elections and to avoid the crisis of the leadership's collapse."
Kang also stressed that "the claim to nullify all elections en masse based solely on their own estimates is an extralegal idea that shakes the foundation of the rule of law." He said the party was "inflating groundless suspicions to heighten uncertainty in local administration and merely fomenting political strife."
"The People Power Party must immediately withdraw its 'blind challenge' aimed at changing the political landscape and its incitement of unconstitutional conspiracy theories," he added. "The Democratic Party will firmly stand against the People Power Party's political offensive to protect the constitutional order and the people's livelihood."
Earlier in the day, the People Power Party held an emergency Supreme Council meeting convened by leader Jang Dong-hyeok and decided to file an election challenge demanding full re-elections at polling stations where ballot shortages occurred in six regions, including Seoul, Gyeonggi, Incheon, Ulsan, Busan, and Gwangju in South Jeolla Province.
Choi Bo-yoon, chief spokesperson for the People Power Party, announced the plan to reporters after the emergency closed-door Supreme Council meeting in the afternoon. Regarding the scope of the elections to be contested, she explained that it would be "a scope that fully includes problematic candidate groups in the local elections, including metropolitan and basic-level government heads, metropolitan and basic-level council members, and metropolitan and basic-level proportional representation members."
