Reform Party's Cheon says Jung's repeated slip may reveal unconscious equation of Lee Jae Myung with Lee Myung-bak

Reform Party floor leader Cheon Ha-ram said Democratic Party of Korea leadership candidate Jung Chung-rae may harbor an unconscious tendency to equate President Lee Jae Myung with former President Lee Myung-bak, after Jung repeatedly referred to the sitting president by the former leader's name at a recent party convention in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province. "Lee Myung-bak is by no means a likable figure among Democratic Party supporters," Cheon said. "One could say Jung himself, even somewhere in his unconscious, equates the two."

Speaking on KBC Gwangju Broadcasting's Yeouido program made public Tuesday, Cheon said the pattern goes beyond a one-off slip. "If it happened once, it would just be a mishap, but this kind of thing — referring to President Lee Jae Myung as Lee Myung-bak — has been repeated several times before," he said. "If candidate Kim Min-seok had made this kind of verbal slip, I wouldn't have paid much attention. But because it is candidate Jung, who has a somewhat uncomfortable relationship with President Lee Jae Myung, people are saying, 'This is a bit strange.'"

Cheon said he found Jung's behavior hard to understand. "He says it that way and doesn't immediately correct himself — he just moves on," Cheon said.

Cheon added that the incident might have been brushed off under different circumstances. "If candidate Jung were on comfortable terms with President Lee, or if the backlash from the president's supporters were not so strong, this could have passed as just a mishap," he said. "But because many people already see candidate Jung as positioning himself in opposition to President Lee, even something like this cannot easily be laughed off."

The slip occurred Sunday, when Jung, during a joint speech at the Daegu-North Gyeongsang Province party convention, said the Honam semiconductor cluster "can be done best" and pledged to streamline the licensing regime, improve living conditions and ensure the Gwangju semiconductor cluster moves forward without a hitch — "so that semiconductor products can be launched within President 'Lee Myung-bak's' term."

Song Young-gil, the next candidate to take the podium, pointed out the error directly. "Candidate Jung made a verbal slip, saying he would complete the Honam semiconductor cluster within the Lee Myung-bak administration's term," Song said. "He didn't even realize he had made a slip and just moved on. Lee Myung-bak's term has already ended."

It was not the first such incident. During campaigning for the June 3 local elections, Jung said, "Isn't President Lee Jae Myung far more capable, far cleaner and far better at diplomacy than the three former presidents — Yoon Suk Yeol, Park Geun-hye and Lee Jae Myung — combined?" He also referred to "Lee Jae Myung, who went to prison for corruption," before immediately correcting himself to say former President Lee Myung-bak.