Jung Chung-rae faces criticism over 'Ddanji Board' posts and 'Al-jeong-jik' remark

He said Jung's messaging is hard to interpret or critique politically. Messages usually have a purpose and a claim backed by reasoning, he explained, and Jung's posts lack those elements.

He pointed to a contradiction: Jung posts so often while claiming to be 'of one mind' with the president, yet on Ddanji Board he plays the president's role more than anyone.

Jung Chung-rae posted last night a message titled 'This is Jung Chung-rae. I'm checking urgently at 11 p.m.', asking those who kept their 'Al-jeong-jik' (I'll vote for Jung Chung-rae without asking) pledge to raise their hands. He added, 'I voted for Jung Chung-rae. Those who kept the pledge, please confirm in the comments,' which appears to reflect a strong desire to have his support base confirmed.

Lee Yu-jin, a reporter at the Kyunghyang Shinmun, compared the messaging of Kim Min-seok and Jung Chung-rae and explained the difference. Kim stresses work and change, saying things like 'If I become party leader, I'll get to work quickly' and 'Here is what I'll do,' focusing on his own role. Jung, by contrast, appeals to supporters to fulfill promises, with lines like 'We made a promise, didn't we?', 'You agreed to vote for me, didn't you?', and 'Do this for me.'

Shin argued, however, that Jung's Ddanji politics is far worse in quality than fan-club politics, as it is fixated on a single online community.

In a post published today titled 'This is Jung Chung-rae. Prime Minister Kim Min-seok, what have you been doing?', Jung Chung-rae called on Kim Min-seok to act on real estate measures and the normalization of LH (Korea Land and Housing Corporation). He said that Kim, who served as prime minister, does not even have a proper grasp of LH and talks about disagreements between ministries, and wrote, 'I really don't know what you did for housing supply over the past year.' In response, Democratic Party lawmaker Cho Gye-won called Jung's attack out of nowhere.

He criticized Jung for spending the entire year fixated on things like prosecution reform and party merger issues, and then suddenly bringing up real estate policy, which he called 'out of nowhere.'

Since Kim cannot decide such matters, criticizing him amounts to targeting the president, he explained.

He explained that the single-stock leveraged ETF issue targeted the policy chief, but criticism of real estate policy questions the president's role, with Jung asking 'what has he done?' Because the prime minister is not the one who runs state affairs overall, he argued, such attacks are in fact directed at the president.

Since aides and ministers assist the prime minister or president, attacking them is no different from criticizing the top official ultimately responsible, the president.

Ha Heon-gi argued that Jung Chung-rae's position is contradictory. He said it is inappropriate for Jung, while running for re-election as party leader, to comment on the prime minister's performance. Now is the time to evaluate the party leader's record, he said, and offering assessments of the prime minister as if Jung were running for prime minister himself is out of place.

Ha Heon-gi pointed to a gap in perception between the president and Jung Chung-rae. The president praised Prime Minister Kim's achievements over the past year and credited Kim with much of the Lee Jae-myung administration's record, whereas Jung views everything as going wrong. He added that such a gap in perception could cause problems for Jung's performance as the ruling party leader.

Ha Heon-gi accused Jung Chung-rae of breaking his pledge to run only for party leader and of lying by calling the local election defeat a 'success.' The local election results were a disastrous defeat, he said, yet once Jung ran out of justification he kept claiming success, and recently went so far as to say the party won 'through agreement among the party, government, and the Blue House.'

The three-person group known as 'Team Jung Chung-rae' is also leveling down, he claimed, and several figures around Jung, including Kim Ho-jun, Choi Wook, and former Minister Yu Si-min, have been 'ruined' by his influence. He said Jung's personal greed is 'bankrupting' all of them, and that even first- and second-tier vendor YouTube channels are being ruined as well.

He described a specific situation in which Jung came close to him in the plenary hall but turned back without coming over. This suggests Jung is trying to avoid direct face-to-face contact with someone who holds critical views of him.

This shows Jung perceives criticism of himself as one-sided attack, and Ha pointed out that such a perception does not match the facts.

He said he would like to praise Jung for what he has done well, but since there is realistically nothing to praise, he cannot offer praise by force. Jung needs to look back on himself, Ha stressed, and at present his self-reflection is very lacking.