Lee Jun-seok: "Ahn first slandered our candidate... 'rlㅋㅋ' is a natural response as the representative"

"My Facebook Major Principle, Reaction to Action"
"If Our Candidate Is Slandered, We Have No Choice but to Retaliate"

Lee Jun-seok, leader of the People Power Party.
Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Ju-hee] Lee Jun-seok, leader of the People Power Party, addressed the controversy over his mocking message directed at Ahn Cheol-soo, the presidential candidate of the People’s Party, with whom he is in conflict over unification negotiations. Lee said, "(Ahn) even talked about a change of deep-rooted evils regarding our candidate," adding, "If our candidate is slandered, from our standpoint, we have no choice but to retaliate." He explained that his remarks were a counterattack against Ahn’s attacks.

On the 25th, Lee appeared on KBS Radio’s "Choi Young-young’s Strong Current Affairs" and said, "Would I have written 'ㄹㅇㅋㅋ' if the unification had failed? I wrote it not when the failure was declared, but when our candidate was criticized," explaining his position.

Earlier, when Ahn mentioned that Yoon had "proposed a primary election but ran away out of fear," Lee shared a related article on Facebook and wrote, "ㄹㅇㅋㅋ Just type these four characters." 'ㄹㅇㅋㅋ' combines the initial consonants of 'Real' (리얼) 'ㄹㅇ' and the laughter sound 'ㅋㅋ', used online to mock someone. This sparked concerns within the People Power Party that Lee’s remarks were excessive.

In response, Lee said, "Ahn went to Busan and made many statements, even mentioning a change of deep-rooted evils. This is a call to fight," asserting that his remarks were a natural reaction as party leader. He added, "Whether to unify or not is his freedom, but as party leader, I cannot overlook criticism of our candidate," and explained, "My Facebook principle is always to link to the opponent’s article and write my reaction. There must be a basic action from the opponent for my reaction to exist."

Lee also placed responsibility for the failure of unification on Ahn. Regarding Ahn’s proposed unification method through a public opinion poll primary, he said, "Kwon Young-se, head of the campaign headquarters, and I, as party leader, said there would be no competitive unification," and explained, "In a situation where there is a large gap in competitiveness between candidates, doing that would obscure policies and visions, and the only beneficiary would be Lee Jae-myung (Democratic Party) candidate."

He continued, "If Ahn were to withdraw his candidacy, our official position was to provide appropriate courtesy, and we mentioned this, but since there was no response from the People’s Party side, it was absurd," adding, "We were the ones who gave the answer and also made the calls. The person who proposed unification and the person who declared its failure are the same," insisting that Ahn is responsible.

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