Jang Dong-hyuk, leader of the main opposition People Power Party, on the 17th called for an immediate halt to the government's blanket survey of farmland. Turning to President Lee Jae-myung, he said, "If you cannot answer the questions the public wants to hear — on a second term and on dropping prosecutions — you should cancel tomorrow's news conference," referring to the president's scheduled appearance on the 18th.
At a party leadership meeting at the National Assembly that day, Jang invited Lee Yeon-won, head of the Deoksan agricultural cooperative in Yesan, Chungcheongnam-do, to speak about conditions in farming communities before renewing his demand that the survey be stopped. The cooperative head said anxiety among farmers is mounting as the survey compounds a shrinking rural population and a freeze in property transactions.
"Local property markets are frozen, and the farmland survey has set a strong fire under that ice," Lee said. "If you impose regulations when there are no buyers for farmland, you are throwing away not just farmland but all provincial real estate."
After hearing him out, Jang said, "Putting the cooperative head's remarks together, there is no one to buy farmland. It sums up in a single line how futile and absurd this survey is, when it began as an effort to catch people treating farmland as a speculative asset."
He also criticized the Democratic Party for reviewing remedial measures ahead of the Chuseok holiday. "Now they say they will come up with supplementary measures," he said. "With Chuseok approaching and farmers' anger boiling over, they must be frightened after all."
Jang said his party had already pressed the issue. "The People Power Party has responded through the Agriculture, Food, Rural Affairs, Oceans and Fisheries Committee and also held an emergency meeting to point out the practical difficulties facing elderly and tenant farmers, the collapse in prices and problems on the ground, and to demand answers on the survey," he said.
"I even proposed meeting Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok in person to resolve this through cooperation, and the Democratic Party turned it around and called it a distortion of the facts," he said. "So what is this about fixing it now? It is fortunate even at this late stage, but they owe farmers an apology."
Jang argued that the direction of farmland policy itself needs to be reconsidered. "Farmland policy must shift from ownership value to use value," he said. "It is time to focus on use value, so that farmland is used as farmland, and to discard the concept of ownership value."
He sharpened his attack on the president's news conference set for the 18th. "The president is holding a news conference tomorrow, and this is the first time I have seen a ruling party tremble with worry like this," he said. "For the news conference to mean anything, he should first apologize to the public for his arrogance and incompetence."
He added: "There are a few things the public really wants to hear — 'no second term, no dropping of prosecutions,' 'I will withdraw the nomination of Kim Seung-won,' 'I will scrap the real estate policy and review it from scratch,' 'I will make a major shift in defense and foreign policy.' If he cannot give any answer on these, he would be better off canceling tomorrow's news conference even now."
He also said, "I hope he provides a clear answer the public can accept on how he will manage relations with the United States in connection with the question of sending troops to Iran," adding, "The public will not be deceived any longer."
