Oh Se-hoon "I used national pension to gamble on stocks for local elections... President Lee must apologize."

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Kim Dong-gyu = Regarding the recent stock market plunge, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said on the 8th, "The government used the national pension as seed money to increase the stake and opened the way for the stake to be increased with high-risk leveraged products," and urged President Lee Jae-myung to apologize directly and prepare a plan to address the damage to individual investors.

Mayor Oh made this claim by posting a post on Facebook on the same day titled ‘Stock gambling for local elections, don’t evade responsibility any longer.’

On the 6th, he mentioned that the KOSPI index fell below the 5,000 mark immediately after opening and a circuit breaker (a measure that temporarily suspends trading when stock prices plunge) was activated, and asked, "Stock prices soared to unbelievable levels before the election, but have continued to plummet after the election. Is all of this really a coincidence?"

Mayor Oh went on to mention that President Lee had emphasized from the time of the presidential election that "asset growth should go to the stock market and capital market, not real estate," and took issue with the National Pension Service's increased target proportion of domestic stocks made just before the local elections.

Mayor Oh criticized, "Just six days before the local elections, the government took the risk of drastically increasing the target portion of the National Pension Service's domestic stocks from 14.9% to 20.8%. They even made the National Pension Service, which is responsible for the people's retirement, serve as a support for the stock market."

He continued, "What added fuel to this fire is a high-risk leveraged product," and pointed out, "On May 27, just a week before the local elections, the launch of a product that doubles the daily fluctuation rate of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix stock prices was allowed. It is a product with extremely high speculative risk."

Mayor Oh said, “The government took the lead in fostering the illusion of rising stock prices, and the people bet their wealth on that illusion,” adding, “Middle-aged people invested their retirement funds, and young people even saved money for marriage and purchasing their own homes to jump into the stock market.”

He argued, “In the end, it has become a huge gambling table that opened the way for the government to use the national pension as seed money to increase the stakes and increase the stakes with high-risk leveraged products,” and added, “The Lee Jae-myung administration’s dangerous arrogance in thinking that it can move the market at will ultimately opened the gates of hell.”

Mayor Oh, referring to President Lee's recent launch of a YouTube conversation broadcast to communicate with the public, criticized, "This is not the time to leisurely answer questions such as 'Why do you often use SNS?' or 'Do you sleep well?'"

Mayor Oh urged, "Please disclose in detail who decided to expand the investment portion of the National Pension Service and with what judgment, who led the launch of high-risk leveraged products and why they was rushed so that not a single doubt remains."

Mayor Oh said, “We must be held accountable for the historical crime of using the people’s lives as test subjects for the regime’s report card.”