Blame game as Lee's lunch with rival party chiefs falls through

A blame game quickly ensued after a luncheon planned between President Lee Jae Myung and the leaders of Korea's two largest political parties fell through shortly before noon Thursday.

The ruling bloc expressed disappointment over People Power Party chair Rep. Jang Dong-hyeok's decision not to attend the luncheon. Jang, meanwhile, condemned the liberal bloc's unilateral push for judicial reform — designed to allow constitutional appeals of Supreme Court rulings and double the number of justices on the court — despite controversies.

Minutes before the scheduled meeting, senior presidential secretary for political affairs Hong Ihk-pyo announced that the luncheon had been canceled due to Jang's "abrupt" decision not to attend. The meeting could have highlighted a need for bipartisanship over current affairs, but was rendered "meaningless" after Jang's decision, Hong added.

"From our perspective, we deeply regret (Jang's) cancellation of the scheduled meeting with the President due to the situation at the National Assembly," Hong said, adding it was "highly inappropriate" for the People Power Party to link the presidential office to the situation in the National Assembly.

Lee has not commented on the canceled meeting as of Thursday afternoon, an unnamed Cheong Wa Dae official said.

Rep. Jung Chung-rae, chair of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, called Jang's decision an "act of disrespect."

"It was the People Power Party itself that requested the luncheon at Cheong Wa Dae, but they canceled just an hour before the meeting while making up all sorts of ridiculous excuses,” Jung told the party lawmakers at the party's general assembly Thursday afternoon.

"This is indeed an outrageous act of disrespect. ... Being rude to the President means being disrespectful to the people who elected him. This must never happen again."

Thirty minutes before noon, Jang said in his announcement that the ruling bloc had "extended a handshake while concealing a knife behind its back," and he therefore could not accept the offer for a lunch meeting at Cheong Wa Dae.

This appeared to refer to the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee's approval of contentious judicial reform bills without consensus from the opposition party lawmakers.

Jang, who had called for a meeting with Lee in his parliamentary speech the previous week, said the Democratic Party's unilateral reform push "will destroy the judicial system," consistent with the party's long-standing claim that the ruling party is seeking to seize control of the judicial branch in its move disguised as a reform.

Jang also suspected that the president might have been behind the decision to invite him shortly before the Democratic Party’s unilateral legislative move. "Whenever I'm scheduled for a meeting with the president, something outrageous like this happens just before the meeting," Jang said.

Jang's remarks aligned with those made by Supreme Court Chief Justice Jo Hee-de on Thursday on his way to the office; he believes the controversial bills "could result in great harm to the people." Jo has long been targeted by the Democratic Party after the Supreme Court found Lee, the then-presidential frontrunner, guilty of violating the election law a month before the June election, which Lee won.

Later in the afternoon, People Power Party lawmakers boycotted Thursday's plenary session at the National Assembly in a show of protest, as pledged earlier by Jang. Lawmakers of the Democratic Party and other minor liberal parties passed bills anyway on Thursday, while clad in hanbok, traditional Korean attire, as earlier requested by Speaker Rep. Woo Won-shik.