Leaders of the People Power Party urged their lawmakers to close ranks ahead of the regular National Assembly session in September, telling them they must "fight with one mind."
"In this regular session, we must work properly and fight properly," People Power Party leader Chang Dong-hyuk said at a workshop for the party's lawmakers held in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, on the 27th.
"We go through a regular session and a parliamentary audit every year, but this year the weight of it feels completely different," Chang said. "The Lee Jae-myung administration is only a little more than a year old, and yet the pace of South Korea's collapse keeps accelerating."
"Can we really leave this in their hands for four more years? The public is worried and angry," he said. "In this regular session and the parliamentary audit, we must clearly speak for the public's worries and anger."
Chang said the party should "prepare thoroughly for the interpellation session and the parliamentary audit, expose the failures of the Lee Jae-myung administration in full detail, and at the same time present the right alternatives." He added that "President Lee Jae-myung's attempt to cancel his trials and to amend the constitution for consecutive terms must be rooted out for good in this session."
"The Democratic Party will push through a special counsel bill aimed at canceling the trials and will use every trick available to build up momentum for a constitutional amendment on consecutive terms," he said. "We cannot sit on our hands just because we are short of seats. If we inform the public properly, the public will fight alongside us."
Floor leader Chung Jum-sik also took the podium, saying the past year under the Lee Jae-myung administration had been "a year of destruction and dismantlement." He said, "Our lawmakers must expose the reality of the destruction and dismantlement this administration is carrying out."
"What we must do as an opposition party is to point out problems item by item in each standing committee and offer alternatives," he added. "Let all 109 of us unite as one, fight together with the public, and fight as an opposition party should."
