The Democratic Party on the 8th sharply criticized a parliamentary address by Chung Jom-sig, floor leader of the main opposition People Power Party, saying it "comes across as nothing more than inflammatory agitation from a far-right YouTuber."
"Gates of hell, plunder, pickpocketing, a con game, a hostage drama — is this really what a representative address by a legitimate political party in the National Assembly should sound like?" Park Sung-joon, the Democratic Party's chief spokesperson, said at a briefing at the National Assembly press center. "It was a speech overflowing with far-right claims and curses, with no sense of responsibility as the main opposition party, calling itself a minority party while abandoning both responsibility and alternatives."
Park said the world today "is applauding the maturity and self-correcting capacity of K-democracy, while the People Power Party still appears unable to wake from its delusions about Yoon Suk-yeol." He added that "the outdated harping on leftists and the red-baiting talk of communists was nothing more than what one would expect from a former public security prosecutor handpicked by Hwang Kyo-ahn." He said "no one among the public will pay any attention to the People Power Party's conduct, which lines up nothing but the language of curses, without even a shred of an alternative, let alone a minimum of dignity."
"Today's speech revealed that floor leader Chung, too, remains part of a faction that still follows Yoon Suk-yeol, along with the 'Yoon Again' movement and party leader Jang Dong-hyuk," he said. "Will he walk the path of a far-right YouTuber rather than that of the main opposition floor leader? All that awaits a far-right YouTuber are the gates of hell," Park said, urging him to "restore politics as soon as possible and open a door to coexistence rather than a door to mutual destruction."
On Chung's stated opposition to constitutional reform under the current administration, Park said, "How lacking in confidence is that?" and criticized it as "an admission that they themselves were the force that tore down democracy all this time."
Asked whether the party had conveyed internal concerns to the presidential office over Yong Hye-in, the nominee for gender equality and family minister, holding her National Assembly seat concurrently, Park was reserved, saying, "Isn't the party leader saying that we are listening to various views and hearing the opinions of the people? We are at that stage."
Separately, party spokesperson Shin Hyun-young also issued a statement the same day, assessing Chung's speech as "filled only with remarks that incite fighting, losing the opposition party's proper duty to prepare alternatives and realize a politics of coexistence." Shin said, "The People Power Party's posture of putting political strife and conflict first, rather than politics for the people's livelihoods, is not the responsible attitude of a legitimate political party," adding, "The Democratic Party will choose a politics of livelihoods and unity, not division and political strife."
