The abysmal fall of a former democracy fighter

A political party that leaves such wild conspiracy theories totally unattended is not normal, either.

Rep. Kim Min-seok, a member of the mighty Supreme Council of the Democratic Party (DP), has raised suspicions of the Yoon Suk Yeol administration attempting to terrorize DP leader Lee Jae-myung after claiming that the conservative government prepares to declare martial law to effectively neutralize the majority opposition. Appearing on a radio program on Tuesday, Kim, 60, justified his groundless accusations by saying, “99 percent of the general public agrees to the need to replace the incompetent administration.”

Lawmaker Kim is convinced that the powers that be — including President Yoon and first lady Kim Keon Hee — would resort to taking extraordinary measures, such as declaring martial law or launching an act of terror on the opposition leader, to avoid going to prison after the government is changed through the next presidential election. Preventing such measures is the opposition’s major obligation, Kim stressed. But we are dumbfounded at the never-ending illusions of a senior lawmaker of the opposition.

After some DP members worried about a lack of strong grounds for his allegations, Kim simply brushed them off. “They talk like that because they are no longer core members of our party,” he said. “Don’t ignore our party’s intelligence capacity.” But his suspicions are solely based on a recent gathering of the Presidential Security Service chief, now defense minister, and three commanders in the military, including the head of the Army Special Warfare Command — and on the alleged existence of a private organization consisting of four generals who graduated from the same high school as President Yoon.

No one would agree to the nonsensical allegations by the lawmaker. His remarks are nothing but a disgrace to our servicemen and the public. We wonder how Kim, a former iconic democracy fighter during his school days, has come this far. He served as the first chief of staff to the head of the DP after suffering a narrow defeat in the 1992 parliamentary elections at age 28. He was even called “a rational former student activist.” Even given his sudden disappearance from the political stage for 18 years since then, we cannot but wonder how he can raise unfounded suspicions nonchalantly. We are deeply embarrassed to witness such a dramatic transformation of a promising political rookie into a sharp sword engrossed in defending the DP leader from his own judicial risks in order to score political points for his own future.

A political party that leaves such wild conspiracy theories totally unattended is not normal, either. If the DP is normal, its members should have repeatedly urged Kim to restrain himself. But they are still keeping mum for fear of relentless attacks from hard-core supporters of Lee. The party is going crazy.