Lee Jun-seok: "Yoon's Shamanism Controversy? Meaningless... People Appointed to the Democratic Party's Campaign Committee Are Obsessed with Omens"

"Ruling Party Brings Up Shamanism and Minority Religions Throughout Presidential Election... Absurd"
Regarding Allegations of People Power Party Joining Shincheonji Cult, "Statistics Confirmed... No 'Abnormal Member' Phenomenon"

Lee Jun-seok, the leader of the People Power Party, is appealing to citizens to support presidential candidate Yoon Seok-yeol in front of Gupo Market in Buk-gu, Busan, on the afternoon of the 15th, the first day of official election campaigning for the 20th presidential election. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoon Seul-gi] Lee Jun-seok, leader of the People Power Party, drew a line on the 'shamanism' controversy surrounding Yoon Seok-yeol, the People Power Party's presidential candidate, saying it is "meaningless."

On the morning of the 16th, Lee appeared on MBC Radio's "Kim Jong-bae's Focus" and said, "In the ruling party of the Republic of Korea, what has been brought up throughout the election is shamanism and some minority religion," emphasizing this point.

He continued, "There was an absurd incident a few days ago," adding, "A member of the election campaign committee of Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party presidential candidate, reportedly placed a straw doll and performed an Osal ritual on candidate Yoon Seok-yeol."

This referred to Nam Mo, who is known to have received a certificate of appointment as the standing chairman of the Committee for Setting the Republic of Korea Straight under the Democratic Party's Bright Future Committee, posting a photo that appeared to show a curse ritual against candidate Yoon. Nam posted on his Facebook, "From now on, I will begin the Osal ritual. I will punish 'Yoonjjeokbeol' in the name of the nation."

In response to the controversy, the Democratic Party stated, "Nam's actions are unrelated to the campaign committee's position," and "He has been dismissed from the committee following his resignation." Nam apologized, saying, "While intoxicated, I lost control of my emotions and excessively cursed candidate Yoon. I apologize and reflect on having done something unforgivable to candidate Yoon."

Regarding this, Lee said, "If you look at which party the people who actually performed these shamanistic and occult rituals belong to, such controversy is meaningless," and added, "It is actually rare in election history for the ruling party to do such things."

Lee also addressed suspicions of collective membership of Shincheonji Church of Jesus members in the People Power Party, saying, "There were already rumors of such unusual party membership during the primaries, so I publicly heard a few people mention it and checked the party membership statistics. Usually, if there is collective membership, regional disparities or such would appear. I looked into it and found no such evidence at all."

Regarding Hong Joon-pyo, a People Power Party lawmaker, who mentioned that he learned right after the presidential primary that Shincheonji members had massively joined the party to support candidate Yoon, Lee said, "After the election ends, when analyzing the causes of defeat, various incorrect information sometimes comes from around. If lawmaker Hong has such misunderstandings, I will provide detailed statistics and explain further."

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