Lee Jun-seok, a 36-year-old politician, won the leadership election for the opposition People Power Party, defeating his rival Na Kyung-won, a former floor leader of the party, and becoming the youngest ever leader of the nation’s main conservative party. The People Power Party’s election commission conducted a vote on 328,000 electors. The final winner was determined by a combination of votes from party members (70 percent) and opinion polls conducted on the public (30 percent). Lee lost to Na in voting among “party members” (37.41% v. 40.93%), which is examined through mobile and ARS.
In the case of ARS, Lee (a 3 time loser for the congress) lost to Na (a 3 time congresswoman) by a large margin (28.70% v. 47.18%); but shockingly enough Lee won by a small margin in the case of mobile (39.62% v. 36.36%).
Moreover, Lee won the “public opinion” part of the contest by a remarkably large margin (58.76% v. 28.27%).
The final turnout: Lee won by 43.8 percent to Na’s 37.1 percent of the vote.
The so-called K-Voting system developed by the National Election Commission is employed to conduct the public opinion polls. In 2017 661 citizens brought a legal claim of election fraud when the current president Moon Jae-in was elected as party candidate for the presidency using the K-Voting system.
The petitioners’ claim was that they had respectively responded to the ARS inquiry by stating their support for number 1 candidate (Mayor Lee Jae-Myung), but later it was confirmed that their responses were missing in the vote counting. This lawsuit is still pending at the Supreme Court without holding hearings.
The new party leader Lee Jun-seok’s speech begins with a quote from Barack Obama. “There is not a white America, a black America, or a yellow America, only the United States of America.” A message of tolerance and integration for South Korea!
He also said that he would make innovative changes in politics by borrowing the lyrics of the popular song “For You” by Im Jae-beom: “Given these rough thoughts about the change I am talking about, the anxious eyes of traditional party members looking at it, and the people who watch it, our challenge to change that will be seen as fierce as war will win.”
Lee proposes a politics that breaks stereotypes and revives individuality: “Politics that make a representation in stereotypes and force people to follow it must disappear. I hope that the precious and healthy personalities of our society, such as “eggs, spinach and bracken”, will not be ground together while forcing even the party representative to follow a stereotype.”
All of these are nice words. What is meant by these fancy messages from the new party leader is to acknowledge that people have different opinions, and their good intentions should not be in doubt; that politics is a road for everyone to be patriotic; and that within the party, he will wage a war of tolerance for innovative change that will usher in the era of individuality.
How is he able to pursue change and which goal he hopes to achieve via such a unity of people is missing. The only two positions Lee stated are: “The impeachment of the last president was justified and so be it” and “Let’s get rid of stereotypes of our society and let’s respect individuality.”
The truth is that conflicts are not amplified now in Korean society because Korean citizens do not know that individuality, tolerance and unity are good values in their society and politics. Also, Korean society is not experiencing racial conflict as was Obama’s United States of America.
Conflicts arise because there are principles and values that cannot be compromised between opposing ideas and groups. This is also sometimes a battle between those who want to reveal the truth and those who want to hide it, and even a struggle between freedom and totalitarianism.
Shouldn’t there be an area where tolerance can no longer be exercised? Isn’t there an irreversible value that cannot be compromised – even in the name of respecting individuality? Citizens here are struggling to clarify that there is an area where integration for the sake of integration itself becomes meaningless.
In the meantime, the values that should be indestructible in our society have collapsed one by one. The rule of law, constitutional order, and trust in the public service whereby national interests should prevail over private political interest, diplomatic assets such as strong alliance between Korea and the United States, and friendship with Japan, and the value of truth-seeking in the society have all collapsed. These broken values are the “eggs, bracken, and spinach” of our society that have made it healthy.
There must be zero tolerance for the forces that dare to use the cultural revolution-style process in the excuse of reforming the prosecution service and cleaning up corruption in the public sector. Moreover, it has become too obvious that it was all the reformers’ own hunger for totalitarian power, not for genuine reform.
For those who do not have values that cannot be compromised, there may be value in just shouting for unity, tolerance, and individuality. It is true that we should overcome social stereotypes, but instead of this coming about as a natural process, does it deserve being set as the main goal of “young” politics or “future” politics in today’s Korea? The important facts and truth directly related to the identity of the Republic of Korea must be revealed even through engaging in a war against forces concealing them.
There exist totalitarians who wear masks of pluralism, feminism, post-authoritarianism, and trade-unionism. And the political forces that advocate tolerance and national unity while sympathizing with these totalitarians behind the curtain are nothing but the enemies of truth and future-oriented politics.
Can’t they even see the reality of Korean politics in the last couple of years where many questionable deaths or suicides have been occurring obviously to cover up the truth?
A young sophist is more dangerous than an old sophist. Because the day of death is far away and he or she is more attractive. Instead of Obama and Im full of personality, tell your own story, Mr. Lee.
What values can you never compromise, and where does your tolerance end? Are those values ones you uphold now?
Right now, there are rumors circulating that Lee Jun-seok was able to be elected as the party leader because there was illicit support from the K-voting system during the public opinion voting process, and there are many people who are convinced of that election fraud.
It is a story of a deal cut with the current administration in return for Lee’s taking the lead in defending against allegations of election fraud in the last April 15th general election in Korea. Since Lee will be using SNS, he must be well aware of these suspicions.
Why don’t you start by clearing up the allegations, Mr. Lee by disclosing the methodological details of K-voting public opinion voting calculations for thorough verification, and eradicate possibilities of illegal voting management in the party voting mechanism. A genuine leader who wants to start a new politics cannot just ignore the suspicion of voting fraud as just “anxious eyes” and something that everyone should tolerate for the sake of “integration”.
I hope that this suspicion will be duly cleared up and that the story of Lee Jun-seok himself be cleanly told. We don’t need Obama’s speech and Im’s lyrics. Tell us what “eggs, bracken, and spinach” should be other than just your personality and anti-feminism that you are championing. There is less than a year left until the next presidential election in this old Korea.
