The People Power Party and the Rebuilding Korea Party made a rare joint call for Financial Services Commission Chairman Lee Eok-won to resign alongside Kim Yong-beom, who stepped down as presidential policy chief. The two parties diverged, however, on what lay behind Kim's exit and who bears responsibility.
Chung Jum-sig, the People Power Party's floor leader, spoke after a floor leadership meeting at the National Assembly on the 1st. "Dismiss the two who remain of the leveraged ETF trio, Financial Services Commission Chairman Lee Eok-won and Financial Supervisory Service Governor Lee Chan-jin," he said. Chung also stressed that "separately from Chief Kim's resignation, fact-finding measures such as a parliamentary investigation are needed into the hasty introduction of leveraged exchange-traded funds."
The Rebuilding Korea Party also urged Lee to step down the same day. In a commentary, party spokesperson Lim Myung-hee said the introduction of single-stock leveraged ETFs "is not a matter that will be settled by Chief Kim's resignation." She criticized Lee, saying he "brought down market confidence and invited a contraction in supply and demand through belated steps — raising deposit requirements, capping leverage ratios and setting investment limits — only after losses among individual investors had surged." She added that "responsible action on the financial authorities' supervision and response must follow, if only to restore the confidence that has been lost."
It is unusual for the People Power Party and the Rebuilding Korea Party to demand the departure of the same financial regulator. An official close to the ruling bloc said public discontent with government policy has grown, and that on some issues the two parties do at times find their positions overlapping.
Their views on Kim's resignation, however, differed. The People Power Party cast it as an attempt to cut off a scapegoat and shield President Lee Jae-myung from responsibility. "There is no way Chief Kim did this — the ETF launch and the rest — on his own, without President Lee Jae-myung knowing," Chung said. "Chief Kim is the tail, and the body is probably President Lee Jae-myung. Cutting off the tail does not make the body disappear." The party used Kim's departure to press its case that responsibility for the policy failure extends to the president.
The Rebuilding Korea Party, by contrast, described Kim's resignation itself as a step needed to restore trust in the government. "It is late, but it is a measure needed to restore trust in the government," Lim said, keeping her distance from political readings of the departure. Her point was that those involved should take responsibility for the policy judgment and the regulatory failures exposed in the rollout of single-stock leveraged ETFs, and that fixing the system comes first.
