Lee Jae-myung "The Party Responsible for the Housing Price Surge... Officially Apologize" Directly Targets Lee Nak-yeon

Gyeonggi Governor Lee Jae-myung is answering questions from reporters after visiting a single mother facility in Nam-gu, Gwangju on the morning of the 18th.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Sumi] Lee Jae-myung, Governor of Gyeonggi Province, directly addressed former Democratic Party leader Lee Nak-yeon, who criticized him regarding the controversy over the Daejang-dong development project in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, and actively offered explanations.

On the 21st, Governor Lee posted a message titled "A Request to Candidate Lee Nak-yeon" on his Facebook page.

He opened by saying to former leader Lee, "It seems you hold an incomprehensible view (misunderstanding) regarding the Daejang-dong development, so I would like to say a few words."

He continued, "Please restrain your aides who attack comrades by blindly following the false claims of conservative media and corrupt opposition parties," and urged, "If an official apology regarding the clear distortion of investment returns and the claims riding on conservative media is difficult, I hope at least an expression of regret will be made."

Earlier, former leader Lee had highlighted suspicions that Lee Jae-myung gave preferential treatment to Hwacheon Daeyu through the Daejang-dong development project promoted during his tenure as mayor of Seongnam at a Democratic Party TV debate for the Honam region.

At that time, former leader Lee criticized, "It is unacceptable to the public that a small number of private investors made 1,100 times the profit," and added, "This can be seen as an unprecedented get-rich-quick case."

In response, Governor Lee listed and rebutted former leader Lee’s claims on Facebook that day. Regarding the criticism that "the private participants’ profits are too large," he said, "It is unreasonable to criticize that we could not predict the housing prices would double and thus could not recover more."

He counterattacked, "It does not seem appropriate for the person responsible for the real estate policy failure that caused housing prices to skyrocket and doubled the expected development profits to make such remarks."

Regarding the criticism that "all media outlets are raising issues," he said, "Although all journalists reported Gwangju as a riot, the truth of May Gwangju was a democratic uprising," and added, "Even if the majority of the media engage in fake news and distorted reporting, 'finding the truth within' is always the attitude of a 'leader' as you often say."

On the question of "why public development was not pursued," he explained, "Seongnam Urban Development Corporation was legally unable to finance the project due to restrictions on bond issuance, and Seongnam City was also legally restricted from issuing local bonds."

He emphasized, "The People Power Party, which took bribes from corrupt construction forces and made them give up public development; the People Power Party president MB who ordered private development and abandoned public development; LH, which gave up public development; and Gyeonggi GH under Nam Kyung-pil of the People Power Party would never have allowed public development."

Finally, Governor Lee asked former leader Lee, "Please acknowledge, encourage, and recommend this case, which recovered 550.3 billion KRW in development profits through an unprecedented and innovative method in law and precedent," and requested, "Please help make the recovery of development profits for the people a legal system."

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