Five former chairs and members of the Yangcheon District Council condemned Chong Won-o, the Democratic Party of Korea's candidate for Seoul mayor.
Five former Yangcheon District Council chairs and members—Yu Bong-gil, Jung Uk-chae, Jeon Hee-su, Lee Seong-guk, and Jang Haeng-il—held a press conference at the National Assembly on the 26th and said, "We strongly condemn the reckless remarks by Chong Won-o, the Democratic Party of Korea's candidate for Seoul mayor, who belittles basic-level councils and denies the foundation of local autonomy."
They took issue with the fact that the candidate said, regarding suspicions of an assault case in Oct. 1995 and the then Yangcheon District Council's administrative questioning minutes, that they "cannot serve as objective materials that could be the basis for determining the facts." They said it was "a very dangerous and irresponsible perception that denies the official minutes of the local council—the representative body of residents—and the council's activities themselves."
They said, "By disparaging the entire Yangcheon District Council minutes as incapable of serving as objective evidence, candidate Chong Won-o damaged the honor of the Yangcheon District Council and further revealed an arrogant perception that even denies the very value of the existence of local councils in the Republic of Korea."
They went on, "If the administrative questioning at the time was false, we cannot help but ask why District Mayor Yang Jae-ho issued a public apology then and why no legal action was taken against the council member in question," adding, "Candidate Chong Won-o will not be able to avoid criticism that he sought to denigrate local councils and shake the authority of council activities to cover his own political burden."
Kim Jae-seop of the People Power Party, who arranged the press conference, told reporters, "The transcript and the written judgment do not conflict, and one should not disparage the transcript while saying one respects the judgment," adding, "Even if you follow the judgment as candidate Chong Won-o says, the fact that a citizen was hit and the police were assaulted does not change at all."