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🇰🇷 South Korea /Elections & Politics

Cho Kuk says Democrats must apologize over ‘secret deal’ claims before merger talks

From Hankyoreh · () Korean

Translated from Korean and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Ongoing story
  • Cho Kuk said the Democratic Party must apologize for attacks made during earlier merger discussions before talks with the Innovation Party can move forward.
  • He said rebuilding trust between the parties and their supporters matters more than creating a formal merger body.
  • Cho also attributed President Lee Jae-myung’s recent approval decline to divisions among traditional Democratic Party supporters during efforts to broaden the party’s centrist appeal.

Cho Kuk says a party committee will not by itself bring the Democratic Party and the Innovation Party closer to a merger. He argued that the process must begin with an apology for attacks made by Democratic Party figures during merger discussions earlier this year.

Appearing on the YouTube program “Gyeomson Is Difficult News Factory,” Cho said trust between the two parties and their supporters had to be restored first. “The merger issue first requires restoring trust between the two parties, or between their supporters,” he said. “I don’t think creating a party body will lead to a merger.”

The merger issue first requires restoring trust between the two parties, or between their supporters.

· Cho KukCho said trust must be rebuilt before merger negotiations can advance.

Cho specifically called for an apology over the Democratic Party’s attacks on the Innovation Party’s land-public-concept and other policies, which he said were labeled “socialist policies.” He also demanded an apology for what he described as a false claim that Cho and former Democratic Party leader Jung Cheong-rae had reached a secret deal. He said these apologies should form the basic condition for merger discussions.

I don’t think creating a party body will lead to a merger.

· Cho KukHe dismissed the idea that an internal merger committee alone would accelerate unification talks.

His remarks came after Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok established an internal body to discuss a possible merger. Cho said the move would not necessarily accelerate negotiations. He also assessed that President Lee Jae-myung’s recent approval-rating decline resulted from traditional progressive supporters being split during the pursuit of a broader centrist base.

Cho questioned whether it was right to divide the traditional progressive bloc or turn a particular group within it into an enemy in the name of centrist expansion. He said people who helped create the Lee Jae-myung government had become divided, while those who had approached from the right had also drifted away. Cho added that supporters appeared hurt and might return if Lee spoke candidly about which policies were deliberate, which had worked and which had been mistakes.

Is it right to divide the traditional progressive bloc or turn a particular group within it into an enemy to achieve the goal of centrist expansion?

· Cho KukCho criticized the political strategy he said had divided the ruling party’s traditional supporters.
About this summary

Originally published by Hankyoreh in Korean. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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