In the second installment of “Neutral Gear,” a live current affairs program broadcast on the Dong-A Ilbo’s YouTube channel on the 23rd, we talked about Lee Joon-seok, the former leader of the People’s Power Party. “When Lee first came out, he was a political dreamer, but now he’s not that young compared to overseas leaders,” said Hwang Hyung-jun, a reporter at the Dong-A Ilbo Social Affairs Department who writes the column “Contempt of Court.” “I hope that established politicians won’t dismiss him as a joke, and that the generation change will give him a chance to approach the politics that the people really need.” Lee’s outspokenness has been controversial both inside and outside the party, but he sees it as meaningful in terms of being fearless and constantly trying new things for domestic politics.

Due to an 18-month suspension of his party membership, Lee will only be able to resume his activities as a party member in January of next year. We discussed whether he will be able to run in the general election in April and what his future political path will be after the election, as well as Lee’s MBTI and other tidbits from the episode. You can find out more on the Dong-A Ilbo YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDOGylUcaYw&t=2156s). Here are the highlights of the broadcast

● Lee Joon-seok, ‘0-liner’, now ‘naive’?

▷ Reporter Jang Ha-yan
Lee Jun-suk was born in 1985. I’m 38 years old now, in my late 30s. I entered politics at the age of 26, when I was in my mid-20s, as Park Geun-hye’s kid. He has never worn the badge of a member of parliament, but in terms of topics and recognition, he is almost like a senior member of parliament. Let’s see how you see it.

Reporter Hwang Hyung-jun
Actually, Lee Joon-seok’s nickname is “zero-term lawmaker.” It’s literally an expression used in the military, but it’s been more than 11 years since I ate jjambap in Yeouido, so it’s been a while. So, although he’s in his late 30s, I think he has the merit and experience of a three-term lawmaker. So, although he has no experience as a lawmaker, he has an excellent view of politics and has had leadership experience since he entered Yeouido. When you’re a first-time lawmaker, you usually become a spokesperson or party spokesperson, and when you’re a re-elected lawmaker, you become what we usually call the deputy leader of the party, which is a very important role because it’s a hands-on role in charge of negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties. When you’re a third-term lawmaker, you become the party secretary general or the leader of the party, and then the standing committee chairman, and after that, from about the fourth term, you become the party leader or the deputy speaker of the National Assembly.

▷Reporter Jang Hayan
Those who have served four terms or more become party leaders.

Reporter Hwang Hyung-jun
Usually, yes.

▷Hayan Jang, reporter
This former representative has ‘0 elections’.

Reporter Hwang Hyung-jun
Mr. Lee started as a non-voting member of the leadership Saenuri Party from political humanities, and then he was the chairman of the innovation committee, and he has a lot of leadership experience. And then he was elected as a party representative at the national convention last year. So you can’t ignore that.

▷Reporter Jang Hayan
However, Lee Joon-seok was under suspicion last year. He was suspended from party membership for six months on July 8, 2018, due to suspicion of sexual entertainment. Then, he was disciplined for another year on October 7, 2018, for the same incident, so his party membership has been suspended for a total of one and a half years. So, recently, he hasn’t been able to participate in activities as a party member, but what kind of behavior is he showing these days?

Reporter Hwang Hyung-jun
First of all, since my party membership has been suspended, it is difficult to engage in full-scale political activities. So, first of all, it is easy to know because I post my movements on SNS, Instagram, and Facebook every day. First of all, the most basic thing now is that ‘innocent happiness’ is now a place name that combines sunflowers and pearls when you say innocent, not innocence. When I graduated from Harvard University, I came to Korea after graduating from Harvard University, and I created and ran an educational volunteer organization called ‘Bannassa’, and when I was doing that organization, I first met with former President Park Geun-hye, and that’s how I got picked up, and I’m still doing it, and I’m teaching math to students here.

Now, why Suncheon and Jinju, Suncheon, Jeollanam-do and Jinju, Gyeongnam, are actually two cities that are now practically stuck together over the Seomjin River, and why the two areas have different political leanings, because one side only votes for the Democratic Party anyway, and the other side only votes for the power of the people, so I want to study that gap politically. And the second aspect is that if you look at it from the Yeongnam, which is the home of the People’s Power, there is a need to expand the area to the west, which is Jeonnam, and this is kind of like Lee Jun-suk’s “West Jin Strategy.” So Kim Chul-geun, the former chief of staff, is from Goheung, Jeonnam, and this Honam strategy. He literally gave me this advice, “Secure support from the eastern part of Jeollanam-do and now go west.

● ‘Cheap’ and ‘nagging’… What is your analysis of Lee Jun-suk’s evaluation?

▷Reporter Jang Hayan
It seems that he is going through a period of strategizing. In fact, Lee Jun-suk is a person who is not only disliked by the opposition but also by the ruling party. In your ＜Court Contempt＞ column, you said, “Progress is not always cheap,” but in the case of Lee, you said, “Cheapness is not the exclusive property of progress.

Reporter Hwang Hyung-jun
When I asked people what they thought was wrong with Lee Jun-suk먹튀검증, there were some expressions that he was now literally unapologetic. The phrase ‘unapologetic progress’ itself means that the older generation is now saying, “Progress is unapologetic,” about former Welfare Minister Yoo Min-sin or people from the 386 movement who entered the political arena relatively early, but they are not polite. First of all, when Professor Emeritus Kang Joon-man of Chonbuk National University wrote a book called’Progress Without Cheapness’, it became widely spread. However, Representative Lee Joon-seok also entered politics for the first time in his late 20s, and once he spoke boldly without being shy and fought with established politicians, he said that there was no cheapness.