Lee Eon-ju, a lawmaker of the Democratic Party of Korea, criticized writer Rhyu Si-min, who recently criticized President Lee Jae-myung's centrist expansion line, saying Rhyu was "trapped in 1980s-90s factional logic" and that his criticism of the Lee Jae-myung administration's outreach-expansion stance reflects a failure to read the trends of the times.
Appearing on YTN Radio on Tuesday, Lee took issue with Rhyu's remark that "supporters wanted an extension, but the president is doing a reconstruction," saying, "I think he is overly confident in his own logic and perception of the times."
She went on to criticize the stance as "an attitude that seems to inject factional logic into supporters while turning a blind eye to double standards," and as "an outdated approach that fails to properly grasp the historic mission facing the Lee Jae-myung administration and the Democratic Party."
Lee particularly rebutted Rhyu for presuming the intentions of the support base. "How can he assert that supporters wanted an extension?" she said. "This is an era of global hegemonic competition, and a situation that requires selection and concentration."
She stressed, "The people and supporters who chose President Lee Jae-myung wanted change not at the level of an extension, but at the level of reconstruction, and even redevelopment," adding, "They expected a leader who would overcome unproductive factional confrontation beyond centrist-conservative expansion and lead the nation into the future."
Lee pointed out that Rhyu's public criticism does not help the party either. "If he is an elder, now is the time to support and cheer for outreach expansion and the success of the administration," she said. "Attacking the president for being overly confident is not desirable from a national standpoint either."
She also said, "Even if the remark was made with prosecution reform or personnel issues in mind, the most important thing is the re-creation of power," and "Re-creating power through outreach expansion is the greatest reform of all." She added, "If we lose centrist support and hand over power, all reforms will return to square one."
Regarding the influence of Rhyu and Kim Eo-jun on the party convention, she assessed, "As a result, it seems to be a blow instead," and "supporters' reactions also appear to be not very good." She continued, "There are quite a few party members who feel resistant to outside figures who are not even party members exerting excessive influence over the party's power structure."
On the possibility of a merger with the Rebuilding Korea Party raised in some quarters, Lee drew a line, saying, "That is a story from a few months ago, and is now outdated talk," and "The public, especially the younger generation, will not accept an old-style merger of dividing up shares."
Regarding the creation of a Honam semiconductor cluster, she explained, "It is not a concept of scaling down the Yongin semiconductor cluster, but a second cluster to respond to growing global semiconductor demand," and "On the contrary, the Yongin project too is bound to be pushed forward even more swiftly as planned."
