Kim Jong-in "Real Estate Will Be Highlighted in Seoul Mayoral Election... Interest from the Perspective of the Underprivileged"

Encouragement to Party Members... "Failed in Elections by Ignoring Past Polarization"
"Will Mobilize All Party Strength to Lead Election Victory... Please Cooperate a Lot"

Kim Jong-in, the Emergency Committee Chairman of the People Power Party, is attending and speaking at the party members' meeting held at the National Assembly on the 6th. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyemin] Kim Jong-in, Emergency Committee Chairman of the People Power Party, emphasized once again the party members' commitment to 'walking with the vulnerable' on the 6th, stating, "We lost the 2002 presidential election because we completely ignored the process of social polarization."

Chairman Kim attended a party members' meeting held at the National Assembly that morning and said, "Please do your best to mobilize all party forces to lead next year's by-elections for the Seoul and Busan mayoral offices to victory. I ask for your full cooperation."

At the meeting, Chairman Kim mentioned social polarization and urged party members to pay attention to the issue.

He said, "During the 1997 'IMF crisis,' we were so focused on rapid recovery that social polarization began, and although it became a significant social problem, the predecessor of the People Power Party, the former Grand National Party, failed to properly recognize it. If we coldly analyze why we lost the 2002 presidential election, when everyone was confident of winning, it was because we completely ignored the process of polarization and only talked about the so-called vested interests, especially showing affection for large corporations."

Chairman Kim added, "Recently, due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), social polarization has been progressing severely and invisibly in our country, but it is necessary to soberly judge whether the political circles are properly recognizing this. There will be a by-election in Seoul next year, which is the area with the highest number of self-employed people. We need to think about what kind of response is shown regarding this."

This was a veiled criticism implying that if social polarization is ignored again, the party will not gain citizens' votes.

He also criticized the government's real estate policy direction, which used taxes as a policy tool, urging attention. Chairman Kim said, "The government caused real estate speculation due to policy failure and then tried to solve it by heavily raising property taxes and holding taxes." He criticized, "When the policy failed and the government was cornered, it tried to use taxes as if it could immediately control housing prices, but the result was only an increase in housing prices."

He said, "Taxes are originally a means for the state to secure necessary resources, but if excessively used as a policy tool, it inevitably causes tax resistance. This is the overall atmosphere in Seoul right now." He added, "This point is expected to be highlighted the most in next year's Seoul mayoral by-election." He emphasized, "Seoul is where the largest number of vulnerable people live. Since our party promised to walk with the vulnerable, please pay a lot of attention to this point."

Regarding the U.S. presidential election, he said, "In the end, common sense wins elections," and added, "No matter how much the government insists on nonsense, if the people do not follow, the election can never be won." Referring to more than 100 million people participating in early voting, including mail-in ballots, Chairman Kim said, "This means that public trust in the Trump administration was rejected," and added, "Although President Trump refuses to accept the election results, American common sense will not allow this."

Chairman Kim predicted that the future 'Biden administration' will emphasize democratic alliances, saying, "This could be an opportunity to further deepen the conflict structure between China and the United States." He added, "They say they will hold a democratic alliance countries' meeting in a year, so our country needs to prepare in advance about what position it will take and what stance we should set if the U.S.-China conflict intensifies."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.