Jung Cheong-rae, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, said on the 22nd that President Lee Jae-myung’s request to move forward with a special inspector was “as expected from Lee,” and signaled the party would cooperate quickly in the National Assembly.
Speaking at a party supreme council meeting held aboard a ferry off Yokjido in Tongyeong, Jung said the post had “remained only as a system” for 10 years since special inspector Lee Seok-soo resigned under the Park Geun-hye government in 2016.
Jung described the special inspector as a key watchdog meant to check presidential power by conducting ongoing oversight of the president’s spouse, relatives within the fourth degree of kinship and senior Blue House officials for matters such as influence-peddling in appointments and the receipt of money or valuables.
He added that there was no special inspector throughout the three years of what he called the “Yoon Suk Yeol prosecution dictatorship” and said that if an inspector had been “watching with eyes wide open” next to the Yongsan presidential office, “Yoon Suk Yeol and Kim Keon Hee would not have been able to recklessly engage in state-affairs meddling.”
Lee requested on the 19th that the National Assembly begin procedures to appoint a special inspector. The ruling and opposition parties held a “2+2 meeting” on the 20th, with floor leaders and senior deputy floor leaders, and agreed to discuss the appointment process.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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