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| Rep. Woo Sang-ho, an interim leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, gestures during a news conference on Sunday in the National Assembly, Seoul. Joint Press Corps |
DPK leader says blame game, personal attacks don't help defeated party regain public's trust
By Kang Hyun-kyung
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| gettyimagesbank |
On Sunday, Rep. Woo Sang-ho, the interim leader of the DPK, said that he won't sit back if there are any DPK lawmakers or members who use the slang word to attack others personally.
"How can you attack fellow party members like that? If you call our party leader a 'watermelon,' isn't that self-destructive? … I hope that you will have more dignified debates using healthy language instead," he told reporters, referring to the emergence of vulgar expressions and nasty personal attacks ― particularly in text messages and social media posts ― amid heated exchanges between two rival factions of the party, following its recent defeat in the June 1 local elections.
Rep. Woo warned that any DPK members who attempt to insult others with offensive language or divisive words will face consequences.
He urged fellow DPK members to stop playing blame games through nasty text message "bombs" and on social media, saying that, if they do not, the main opposition party won't be able to get the public's trust back.
In the highly divided DPK that is reeling from two overall election defeats in a row ― the first in the March 9 presidential election and then in many of the June 1 local election positions ― blame games have continued without showing signs of abating.
In Korean politics, "watermelon" has come to be an insult. Just as the watermelon is very different both inside and out, the expression has come to be used for people who look one way on the outside but are different on the inside. The word refers to someone who appears to be a member of the DPK on the outside, but inside is in fact a traitor.
The derogatory term was first introduced by some loyal supporters of Rep. Lee Jae-myung to discredit Lee's rival, former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon, who competed against the former Gyeonggi governor in the DPK's primary to select its presidential candidate last year.
Recently on Sunday, the slang word again became a source of a dispute between the two factions: those who support Rep. Lee and those who are against him.
Three-term lawmaker Rep. Lee Won-wook initiated the controversy by uploading a photo of a watermelon on Facebook. "This watermelon is really good. People who ate this with me said that no other fruit can be compared to watermelon especially in summer," he wrote underneath the photo.
The three-term lawmaker is one of the opponents of former Gyeonggi Governor Lee.
His highly evocative social media post ignited a debate. Rep. Kim Nam-kuk, a close aid of Rep. Lee Jae-myung, criticized his fellow lawmaker for the post. Reacting to the watermelon post, Rep. Kim said that Rep. Lee Won-wook had been trying to make others angry by ridiculing them and urged him to delete it. The two exchanged barbs through social media.
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