At the June 3 local elections, Lee Jin-sook, former Chairperson of the Korea Communications Commission, who was cut off (excluded from nomination) in the People Power Party primary for Daegu mayor, hinted again at an independent run, saying she would be judged by Daegu residents in line with their will and would seek their choice.
Posting on Facebook the same day, the former Chairperson said, the decision-making power over me lies not with the party leadership or the nomination committee but with citizens and voters, and stated accordingly.
The former Chairperson said the cutoff was shocking because she had won an overwhelming approval rating with a large gap over the second-place candidate in every poll, and added that none of the explanations offered so far logically and properly explains the cutoff against her.
In particular, regarding the party's preannounced exclusion criteria—gapjil (abuse of power), corruption, abuse of authority, the four major violations, and social scandal—she said, I do not fall under any item, and added, the nomination committee must clearly state on what grounds I was excluded.
The former Chairperson said, After Lee Jung-hyun's nomination committee resigned, I called Representative Jang Dong-hyeok. It was to ask the party leader to make a preemptive decision before the court ruling on the injunction filed by lawmaker Joo Ho-young, and added, However, the party leader did not take the call, and the subsequent Park Deok-heum nomination committee said it would keep the six-person primary as is.
She continued, During a visit to Daegu on Mar. 22, Leader Jang had spoken to the effect that he wanted a fair citizen primary and had said it was undesirable for in-party issues to go to the judiciary, so I expected the eight-person primary to be restored, and added, However, the party leadership and the new nomination committee committed the mistake of contradicting the principles they themselves had stated.
The former Chairperson said, I saw a report that due to the wrong nominations, People Power Party support in the Daegu–North Gyeongsang region fell sharply by more than 9 percentage points (p). If so, the party leadership should have found a way to make up for it, and added, If there was a misjudgment, if there was a mistake, the way to make amends is to apologize and reverse that decision.