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Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party, holds up a picket condemning the Yoon administration during a rally held by his party near Seoul’s Sungnye Gate in the city center on Feb. 4. (pool photo)

The Democratic Party staged a large-scale demonstration in Seoul’s Namdaemun area on Saturday to denounce the prosecutors’ concerted investigations into opposition party figures.

This marks the first time the party has engaged in large demonstrations outside of the National Assembly in the six years since 2016, when it held a rally to call on then-President Park Geun-hye to step down.

The party leadership has emphasized that it is adopting a “two-track” approach of battling for livelihoods in the National Assembly while carrying on the other fight outside of parliament. But observers within the party voiced concerns that if the battle outside of the National Assembly continues, the opposition could find itself framed as “embattled.”

A “citizens’ briefing rally” held by the Democratic Party on Saturday to denounce the Yoon Suk-yeol administration’s “bankrupting of livelihoods and prosecution dictatorship” was crowded with around 20,000 supporters, according to police estimates. The Democratic Party estimated the figure at 300,000.

While supporters waved signs and banners with messages such as “special prosecutor for [first lady] Kim Keon-hee” and “down with livelihood-destroying Yoon Suk-yeol,” no fewer than 102 out of the Democratic Party’s 169 sitting lawmakers were present at the front of the stage.

With the party holding its first rally outside the National Assembly since the Yoon administration took office, even many of the same lawmakers who had voiced criticism of the “out-of-parliament” approach at general meetings and elsewhere showed their faces in a gesture of solidarity.

In a speech that lasted around 20 minutes, party leader Lee Jae-myung said, “In the space left behind the Yushin dictatorship [of Park Chung-hee], a dictatorship of the prosecutors has now coiled to strike.”

“We must take action to save democracy from being suffocated,” he urged.

Taking aim at the prosecutors’ investigation of him, Lee sent a “warning message to the Yoon Suk-yeol dictatorship of the prosecution.”

“Do not trample on Lee Jae-myung, and do not trample on livelihoods. Even if you destroy Lee Jae-myung, do not harm democracy,” he said, emphasizing the administration’s approach of ignoring the people’s cost-of-living crisis and devoting all its energies to destroying political rivals.

He also said, “The difficulties I am going through are nothing compared with the suffering and hardship of the public.”

“I am committed to this historical mission. I will stand up firmly to any persecution, and I will not lose sight of the responsibility that the public has charged me with,” he asserted.

While the Democratic Party does not have any immediate plans for another rally outside of parliament, it is leaving open the possibility of more outside battling as it watches the tides of public opinion. One plan that is being discussed by the leadership involves turning Lee’s nationwide “listening tour and public briefing” into a combined forum for staging street rallies.

A key Democratic Party official said, “While it’s very important to let the public know about the Democratic Party’s plans and the current situation, there aren’t really any suitable means for doing that besides out-of-parliament rallies.”

“We’re questioning whether we ought to adopt a more flexible approach to the public briefings to suit the situation,” they added.

But some within the party warned against leaning too heavily into battles outside of the National Assembly.

“When we take the battle outside too much, it comes across like we’re giving up on the parliamentary approach,” said one second-term lawmaker. “I think it’s important for us to honor our role as the top opposition party.”

Members of the party have also been talking about the example of the Liberty Korea Party, which suffered in its approval rating after devoting too much of its energies to an out-of-parliament battle against the Moon Jae-in administration’s prosecution reforms.

“Once you hold these kinds of rallies outside of the National Assembly two or three times, it can become more difficult to get out of that cycle,” a first-term lawmaker said.

“This will leave the leadership facing an enormous burden,” they predicted.

In a possible gesture to these criticisms from inside and outside the party, the Democratic Party leadership emphasized that it would be sticking to its approach of “combining work with fighting.”

The day after the rally, Lee had Democratic Party local government heads visit the National Assembly on Sunday for a presentation on measures to address exploding heating costs. This move was interpreted as part of the party’s drive to attend to livelihood issues.

Criticizing the administration’s approach to the heating issue during his presentation, Lee said,

“There are local governments like Paju’s that are striving to help the people with total budgets less than one three-hundredth the size of the central government’s.”

“It is outrageous that the central government has not done anything about it,” he declared.

By Shim Wu-sam, staff reporter; Joh Yun-yeong, staff reporter

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