Kim Min-seok: "The party bears responsibility for reversing the slide in approval ratings"

Democratic Party of Korea Chairman Kim Min-seok said on the 15th, regarding the ruling party's declining approval rating, that "the responsibility for reversing the slide lies first and foremost with the party, and now is the time for the party to get to work." His remarks came at the first joint meeting of city and provincial chapter chairs held the same day at the party's headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul. "If we look closely, the bottom of the approval rating is almost imminent," Kim said at the meeting. He added, "I remain committed to keeping my party convention pledge to raise the approval rating by 10 percentage points within my first 100 days in office."

He also offered his own diagnosis of the cause of the decline. "The party and the Republic of Korea had been moving forward on the strength of the president's leadership, but the local elections fell short of expectations due to various shortcomings," Kim said, analyzing that "combined with the end of the honeymoon period in the first year of the administration, the approval rating has remained low."

On election preparedness, Kim called for a shift to an election-ready system. "A modern political party is fundamentally an electoral organization," he said. "From today, we should move to a system that is, in effect, preparing for victory in the general election." He also stressed that the party must recognize that victories in some regions where special elections have been confirmed, such as Gangneung, are a precondition for overall victory. Kim also brought up the Seoul mayoral race. "Since the Seoul mayoral election is highly likely to be confirmed, the whole nation must think ahead about how it will help win the Seoul election," he said.

To the city and provincial chapter chairs, Kim urged self-examination. "We need to strengthen self-assessment of our work and make efforts to raise our policy sync rate (level of alignment)," he said. He added that since the activities of local governments, particularly their heads, often fall into an oversight gap, the party must constantly monitor whether its elected officials are upholding the party's policy lines and standards of decorum.