Ahn Cheol-soo tells Democratic Party chief to 'wake up from constitutional reform pipe dream'

People Power Party lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo on Monday took direct aim at Democratic Party of Korea leader Kim Min-seok, urging him to "wake up from the pipe dream of constitutional reform."

Ahn made the remarks in a Facebook post, saying Kim had launched a constitutional reform task force Monday and claimed it was "time to shift to serious constitutional reform discussions."

Citing recent polling, Ahn noted that a Gallup Korea survey found the top reasons for negative assessments of President Lee Jae Myung were real estate policy at 20 percent, personnel appointments at 16 percent and economic and livelihood issues at 9 percent. "What the public wants is for the government to pay attention to putting food on the table, not constitutional reform," he said.

Kim launched the task force after President Lee declared at a press conference Friday that he would not seek re-election. At the task force's launch event Sunday, Kim said the president had "expressed his will for constitutional reform on multiple occasions and clearly resolved the obstacles raised by the opposition," adding that "the obstacles themselves have disappeared."

Ahn pushed back, saying approval ratings for President Lee and the Democratic Party have been in "endless freefall" since Kim took the party's helm. "If you don't want to keep being called a leader who is driving the party into the abyss, wake up from the pipe dream of constitutional reform and focus on people's livelihoods," he said.

Ahn also weighed in on the withdrawal of Kim Seung-won as a nominee for justice minister, saying Kim Min-seok had praised the nominee just 10 days earlier as "a better and better pick the more you watch him." "I suppose that kind of grasp on reality is why he is now talking about something as far-fetched as constitutional reform," Ahn said.

Ahn argued that if political institutions are the problem, the first priority should be banning the proportional satellite party system that produced lawmaker Yong Hye-in. "Will they again deceive the public by doling out seats like pocket change to fly-by-night parties such as the Basic Income Party, which rode the Democratic Party's proportional party banner to win votes?" he asked.

He pressed further, saying that unless the Democratic Party intends to hand three proportional-representation terms to Yong through its own doing, it must first fix the electoral law to close loopholes like the proportional satellite party scheme.