'Seo called NEC chief on election day to make personal request'
'Her brazen conduct is the key qualification for chairing judiciary panel again'
'Democratic Party too close to NEC to be trusted with special prosecutor recommendation'
People Power Party floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik on Wednesday called on Rep. Seo Young-gyo to step down as chair of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee, arguing that the Democratic Party of Korea cannot credibly claim to support reform of the National Election Commission while keeping her in the post.
Speaking at a PPP supreme council meeting at the National Assembly, Jeong said NEC reform "must happen," and that "a special prosecutor investigation without any sacred cows must come first" for that reform to be thorough.
Jeong said it had come to light that Seo, in her capacity as judiciary committee chair, called former NEC chief Noh Tae-ak on the day of the June 3 local elections to ask him to publicize measures preventing double-marking on ballots for local council seats. "The very act of a lawmaker making a private call to the NEC chairman on election day to lodge a personal request is conduct that defies common sense," he said.
He added that the call could not be dismissed as a routine complaint, given that multiple Democratic Party candidates for local council seats were running in Seo's own constituency. "It could be seen as an improper solicitation, not a simple inquiry," he said. Jeong said her "remarkable lack of judgment" was precisely the qualification that had landed her the judiciary committee chairmanship again. He added that "only someone this brazen could lead the kind of frenzied legislative rampage we will see in the second half of the Assembly — pushing through bills like the special prosecutor act to drop the indictment against President Lee Jae Myung."
Jeong said that at the very moment the NEC was responding to Seo's call within nine minutes "like a constituent-services hotline on standby," many citizens were waiting more than one, three or even six hours just to receive a ballot. "The NEC gave a free pass to the demands of the ruling party's judiciary committee chair while throwing up barricades against the people's right to vote," he said.
He also said the episode illustrated how deeply the Democratic Party and the NEC were intertwined. "If a party this entangled with the NEC gets to recommend the special prosecutor, can the public trust the outcome of that investigation?" he said.
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