'Not something to brush aside with melodrama'
Calls on president to order joint investigation
People Power Party floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik on Wednesday called on Democratic Party of Korea leader Kim Min-seok to "take responsibility for the Shincheonji affair and resign immediately."
In a Facebook post Wednesday, Jeong said the Democratic Party's convention last August "was a massive fraud," alleging that President Lee Jae Myung had openly backed Kim's candidacy through what Jeong called a hollow Honam semiconductor cluster policy, while Kim had won the convention by spreading claims of a secret alliance with the Shincheonji religious group.
Jeong sharpened his criticism of Kim's apology to Democratic Party lawmakers at a caucus meeting Tuesday. "Kim said at the caucus that there was no evidence of a three-way secret alliance with Shincheonji, and reportedly shed tears and apologized to lawmakers," Jeong said. "But this is not something to brush aside with the kind of melodrama where you squeeze out a few tears."
Jeong said there were only two possible explanations for why Kim had reversed course from his earlier claims about the convention's significance. "Either Kim engaged in political manipulation, as former party leader Jung Chung-rae put it," he said, "or he is now trying to smooth things over with an apology and tears because the lies have become impossible to manage."
Jeong also raised the alternative: "The secret alliance with Shincheonji is real, and there is a separate reason it can never be made public."
Jeong said an investigation was unavoidable either way. "If the secret alliance claim is false, police must immediately investigate Kim on charges of spreading false information," he said. "If it is true, police must investigate the Democratic Party."
Jeong added that the Democratic Party's internal inquiry could not be trusted. "Only investigative authorities can determine the scale of Shincheonji's infiltration into the party and what operations were conducted," he said. "Even identifying which party members were Shincheonji followers requires law enforcement. This case absolutely demands an investigation."
Jeong also directed criticism at President Lee, saying Lee bore political responsibility for the situation. He cited Lee's remarks at a New Year's press conference in January, in which Lee said collusion between politics and religion was "the path to national ruin."
"Right beneath the president's feet lies the alleged secret alliance between Shincheonji and the Democratic Party — the root of national ruin and subversion," Jeong said. "Should it not be rooted out? I strongly urge President Lee again to order a joint police-prosecution investigation into the allegations of a Democratic Party-Shincheonji secret alliance."
Turning back to Kim, Jeong said Kim must step down immediately. "If the secret alliance claim was false, he openly spread misinformation — that alone warrants leaving politics for good," he said. "If the allegations are true, then moving to cover it up at the caucus amounts to concealing a crime, which equally warrants retirement from public life."
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