The ruling and opposition parties traded sharp barbs on the 14th over President Lee Jae-myung's successive messages targeting owners of multiple homes. The People Power Party criticized Lee's remarks as "wordplay on the public," while the Democratic Party of Korea countered that they were "measures to normalize the excessive gains of multi-home owners."
People Power Party Senior Spokesperson Park Seong-hoon directly rebutted the president's explanation in a commentary that he had "never forced anyone to sell their home." Park said, "For the very person who has publicly said multiple times, in effect, 'don't hold out,' to now claim it wasn't coercion is clearly wordplay."
Park went on, "After mobilizing taxes, loans, and regulations to effectively pressure a specific choice, is it the attitude of a responsible leader to say 'the choice is free'? Shouldn't a president be different from a street thug who makes excuses by saying they never asked for money?"
Park pressed Lee over holding an apartment in Bundang that he does not occupy, asking, "Should this be taken as a public promise not to realize a capital gain through a sale or make a gift after leaving office?"
Spokesperson Jo Yong-sul of the same party also said in a commentary, "It is a double standard for President Lee to pressure only the public not to hold homes they do not live in, while he himself has not lived in the Bundang apartment for years."
The Democratic Party of Korea defended the president's message as a fair step to achieve "normalization of the real estate market." Floor Spokesperson Kim Hyeon-jeong, aiming at People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok, who owns multiple homes, said in a written briefing, "It is a case of a multi-home owner's guilty conscience that Leader Jang, who owns six dwellings, hurled criticism at the president's point about extending loan maturities."
Kim said, "The president's point is to fix wrong policies used for real estate speculation, claw back undue privileges, and impose corresponding burdens," adding, "While protecting owner-occupiers, holding multi-home investors and speculators accountable for the harm they inflict on ordinary people is the principle of fairness."
Aiming at Jang, Kim said, "You don't have six bodies, so I suggest you take this opportunity to dispose of the five you don't live in."