Yoon Sang-hyun, "Presidential nomination intervention, Heo Hwang novel"...Lee Joon-seok, "Demand for the mayor's nomination as well."

[Anchor]
When suspicions were raised that the nomination principle had been changed due to President Yoon's intervention during the by-elections two years ago, Yoon Sang-hyun, a member of the People's Power who was in charge of the nomination at the time, dismissed it as a "false novel."

Rep. Lee Joon-seok of the New Reform Party claimed that the president also mentioned the nomination of the mayor or district chief during the 2022 local elections.

Reporter Kim Da-yeon reports.

[Reporter]
It was on May 10, 2022, that the People's Power Nomination Management Committee announced the "strategic nomination" of former lawmaker Kim Young-sun.

A day ago, Myung Tae-kyun spoke to President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was the president-elect at the time.

It is analyzed that the call was made when Rep. Lee Joon-seok, who was the leader of the party, told Mr. Myung that he was in an atmosphere of going to a "race" in which he competes with other candidates, not strategic nominations.

[Yoon Suk Yeol / Then-President-elect (May 9, 2022): The mission committee brought it to me, so I asked Kim Young-sun to do it because she's been running hard since the election, but she's talking a lot. At the party....]

In the end, the core of the suspicion is that the principle of nomination has changed from 'primary' to 'strategic nomination' as the president plays a decisive role.

Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun, the chairman of the nomination management committee at the time, refuted that he had never decided to run in the first place and reiterated that he had never communicated with the president and his wife regarding the nomination.

[Yoon Sang-hyun / People's Power: It turned from a primary to a strategic nomination' is a lie in itself. In a word, it's like a fictional novel. It's never been decided by a primary.Representative Lee, who communicated with

, also explained that if the president was trying hard, he would hear it from him, but that's not the atmosphere, so he conveyed the atmosphere of the party.

[Lee Jun-seok/Representative of the New Reform Party: President Myung Tae-kyun told the president that he thought (former lawmaker Kim Young-sun) was being nominated, so he thought he was mistaken.]

Representative Lee, however, raised additional suspicions that the president had demanded the nomination of a specific mayor or district head during the local elections two years ago.

The key point of the investigation was whether the president intervened in the nomination, but he drew the line that he was not trying to expose politics.

[Lee Jun-seok / New Reform Party member: The president once laughed at the president for not listening to Lee Jun-seok and asked me to nominate a specific mayor....]

However, he strongly denied the allegation that he had received a free poll from Myung, but the informant Kang Hye-kyung retorted that he had investigated for free seven times.

Some predict that the possibility of a prosecution investigation into influential politicians such as lawmaker Lee and former emergency committee chairman Kim Jong-in, who Myung mentioned his friendship with, cannot be ruled out because of the mixed statements and public interest.

I'm Kim Dayeon of YTN.

Reporter for filming
: Lee Sung-mo Han Sang-won
Video editing: Kim Hee-jung