Lee Nak-yeon: "The Cause of the Democratic Party's Defeat Was Blaming Others Without Taking Responsibility"

"After Losing the Presidential Election, Proceeding with the Local Elections as if Nothing Happened"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jun-yi] Former leader of the Democratic Party, Lee Nak-yeon, cited the Democratic Party's failure to take responsibility and instead blame others after the presidential election defeat as the cause of the party's crushing loss in the local elections. He also urged that the future formation of new leadership be conducted properly and fairly.

On the 2nd, through Facebook, Lee posted an article titled "The Democratic Party After the Local Elections," stating, "Even after losing the presidential election, the party proceeded with the local elections as if nothing had happened, only to suffer another defeat," and added, "The accumulation of defeats and the strange responses to them have deepened the Democratic Party's ailments."

He pointed out, "The people gave the Democratic Party a harsher rebuke than the 5 to 12 ratio in metropolitan mayoral seats. In particular, the 37.7% voter turnout in Gwangju was a political impeachment of the current Democratic Party."

Regarding "what the loser should do," he criticized, "They should acknowledge defeat, analyze and accept the causes of defeat, eliminate the underlying problems, and advance to a new stage. Instead of admitting defeat, the Democratic Party praised itself by saying 'we lost but fought well' and pushed aside evaluations of the causes of defeat."

He continued, "More precisely, that process was strategically distorted and misrepresented," adding, "In that way, those responsible did not take responsibility but blamed others, rejecting the common sense of the general public through their actions. Since it started that way, nothing could properly follow."

Lee diagnosed, "Not taking responsibility and blaming others is probably the political behavior that the people are most fed up with. The Democratic Party continued that behavior," and said, "The people's disappointment and anger accumulated."

Regarding the party's future direction, he emphasized, "The immediate task is whether the new leadership and evaluation bodies are formed with legitimacy and whether their work proceeds fairly," and stressed, "There must be no recurrence of any strategic distortion from the formation of the leadership and evaluation bodies to the process and results of the evaluation work."

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