Jeong Cheong-rae rebuts Kim Min-seok’s ‘party leader dream’ remark as “self-centered politics”

National Assembly member Jung Chungrae of the Democratic Party of Korea publicly pushed back against lawmaker Kim Minseok, criticizing Kim's past remarks as "selfcentered politics." In a social media post on the 7th, Jung wrote that Kim's "dream of becoming party leader" remark, made during his tenure as Prime Minister, was not appropriate for a position that should be focused on state affairs, and cited it as a representative example of selfcentered politics. Earlier this year, Kim said in a YouTube interview that he had expectations and a dream for the Democratic Party chairmanship. In his announcement the previous day that he would run for party leader, he claimed that Jung's political moves had caused confusion in party and partygovernment cooperation, and Jung then came out in rebuttal. Jung explained that he did not favor any particular faction when appointing party officials and that he had not engaged in selfcentered politics, such as by not giving exclusive media interviews after taking office. In response, Kim said he had raised issues such as the merger question, prosecutorial reform, command over nominations and elections, and a lack of coordination between the party and the government, and proposed a public debate. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party's national convention is expected to solidify into a fourway race as, in addition to Kim Minseok, Song Younggil, and Jung Chungrae, lawmaker Koh Minjung has also decided to run.