Democratic Party leadership candidate Kim Min-seok said on the 12th regarding rival candidate Chung Cheong-rae, "In a situation where internal and external crises are beginning, we must navigate them with capability and a principled course, but candidate Chung will not be able to pull it through."

Appearing on Kim Eo-jun's YouTube show "Humility is Hard News Factory" today, candidate Kim stated, "(If candidate Chung) becomes leader, things will become even more difficult than over the past year."

Kim emphasized, "When the president has four years left in office, the ruling party must maintain stability and stay firm. (If candidate Chung becomes leader), I believe it will be difficult to secure party stability, manage party-government relations, and support the direction of state affairs."

He went on to claim, "Ever since the local election results came out, presidential approval ratings have dropped, the stock market and policies have shaken, and the overall mood has loosened. Politics is about turning vicious cycles into virtuous ones, but such a virtuous cycle would be difficult to achieve."

This is seen as raising the "Chung Cheong-rae responsibility theory" over the defeats in Seoul, Daegu, Gyeongbuk, and Gyeongnam—despite winning a majority of metropolitan mayoral and gubernatorial races—and highlighting the conflict between President Lee Jae-myung and candidate Chung.

Asked about the causes behind the current decline in the president's approval rating, Kim diagnosed, "There has been a loosening among moderates, our internal base has pulled back amid fierce battles in the party convention process, and the conservative base has gained momentum."

However, he forecasted, "Once the party convention concludes, a rebound will begin, party approval ratings will recover by 10 percentage points (p) three months later, and a dual-engine system will be established where state approval ratings recover as well."

Asked whether he can mend emotionally heated relations with candidate Chung during the convention, Kim replied, "Emotional issues with candidate Chung will be resolved by the next day."

Meanwhile, revisiting his departure from the party during the 2002 presidential election when he advocated for a single candidacy between Roh Moo-hyun and Chung Mong-joon, Kim apologized again, saying, "(At the time) I thought it would be fine even if Chung won," and added, "I thought whoever won would be better than Lee Hoi-chang."

Regarding the ongoing "Lee Un-ju Telegram" suspicions continuously raised by candidate Chung, Kim stated that he has nothing to do with it.

This suspicion refers to an incident in January of this year during a National Assembly plenary session, when the media captured a Telegram chat room between a Democratic Party lawmaker and a cabinet minister amid discussions regarding a merger with the Rebuilding Korea Party.

At the time, the cabinet minister in question sent messages to the lawmaker such as "changing the party name and dividing up posts are impossible."

(Photo: Yonhap News)