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Democratic Party candidate for president Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung responds to a question from a lawmaker during the 2021 parliamentary audit of Gyeonggi Province by the National Assembly’s Public Administration and Security Committee held Monday in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province. (pool photo)

Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party candidate for next year’s presidential election, described himself Monday as the “designer” of Seongnam’s Daejang neighborhood, in a message signaling his intent to get on top of an issue that has been creating problems for his campaign.

A parliamentary audit that day, which essentially turned into a hearing of Lee Jae-myung, failed to land any decisive blows for the rival People Power Party (PPP), which has announced its plans to explore all the related allegations in detail.

Instead, Lee characterized the Daejang situation as a scandal for the PPP itself and the asset management company Hwacheon Daeyu, insisting that the “culprits in corruption are the ones who took the money.”

The audit of Gyeonggi Province by the National Assembly’s Public Administration and Security Committee was held Monday at the provincial office in Suwon.

During the audit, Lee said, “I am indeed the ‘designer’ of Daejang.”

“People may want to make it out as though I said I designed the sharing of internal profits by a private operator, but what’s clear is that I designed the internal profit recovery methods, procedures, and security measures for the city of Seongnam,” he added.

“Would I be talking publicly about having designed it if I had plotted the corruption?” he asked.

Lee also said that “sending all the profits to the private sector was the People Power Party’s design.”

Responding to comments after the failure to recover surplus profits despite the effort being a joint development project by the private and government sectors, he said, “We wouldn’t be able to negotiate if we proposed sharing the [profits from the] rise in housing prices, and there would have been a lawsuit if we refused on those grounds.”

“When land prices rise, that can benefit the operator, but when unexpected drops occur, the operators lose out and we claim the finalized profits. Administration should not be based on speculation,” he added.

From start to finish, the audit was a war of nerves between the ruling and opposition parties.

PPP lawmaker Kim Do-eup opened fire by commenting that Lee “could be Seongnam mayor, Gyeonggi governor, and the Democratic Party presidential candidate in spite of his ‘glorious record.’” Calling this an “incredible ‘new normal,’” he added, “There’s a reason [Lee] is closer to the jailhouse than the Blue House.”

Fellow PPP lawmaker Kim Yong-pan cited a statement from a currently incarcerated organized crime figure, who said they had passed along a total of 2 billion won over dozens of occasions since 2007 to Lee, whom they accused of colluding with international mafia figures.

Lee called the allegations “apparent falsehoods” and stressed that he would “obviously take legal action.”

He also made it clear that he disagreed with the opposition’s calls for a special prosecutor, which he said would be “more about making attacks than getting to the truth.”

Responding to allegations about the proxy payment of legal fees, Lee said, “There were a total of five trials, from the investigation process to the first through third trials and the Constitutional Court appeal, and the attorneys appointed there amounted to four individuals and six law firms.”

“I wired all of the legal fees to Nonghyup and Samsung Securities accounts, and the amount came out to just over 250 million won,” he added, saying he would “consent to tracing of accounts without a confiscation warrant during the prosecutors’ and police’s investigation process.”

Meeting with reporters ahead of the audit, Lee shared remarks about Yu Dong-gyu, the currently detained former head of the Seongnam Development Corporation’s planning headquarters.

“As the person with authority to make appointments, I apologize sincerely for the tainting of related officials and the collusion by private operators,” he said.

Lee also bowed his head as he admitted to feeling a “sense of betrayal at a personal level.”

By Kim Mi-na, staff reporter

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