Controversy Over Chung's Comments Refuses to Die Elderly Association Calls on Uri Party Head to Retire from Politics

Would Chung tell his own parents on Election Day, “Just stay at home and rest?” Will Chung himself stop going to the voting center 10 years from now when he enters his 60s? He said, “Young people are at the center of the candlelight demonstrations. The future is the stage of those in their 20s and 30s. Those people [who are in there 60s and above] will probably exit the stage.” His words can be interpreted as nothing other than that people over the age of 60 have no right nor need to worry about this nation’s future.

People in their 60s and 70s experienced the division of our nation, the war and all the political upheavals, brought about high levels of economic growth, and were the main actors in building the base for democratization. For someone to encourage our parents’ generation to not vote just because they strongly tend to be conservative and hence less important to Uri Party supporters is something anyone with a minimum of common sense would never do. We’d like to ask Chung if the scene of elderly voters who drag their weakened bodies to the polling station just to exercise their precious right to vote is something beautiful, or does he does he watch it with an expression of, “Oh, here are all these worthless old folk here to vote.”

Even if consider just the nation’s future, which Chung stressed, it’s not a problem for those in their 20s and 30s alone. Even more than younger people, the older generation worries about and is attached to the future of the nation ? a future they will bequeath to their descendants. Therefore, the younger and older generations of a nation should cooperate and find harmony. Chung’s comments were so beneath his status and sense as ruling party leader that we’d like to believe they were an April Fools’ Day joke.