Former International Criminal Court Ambassador Moss Tantum stressed on the 23rd (Korean time) during an appearance on PEN&MIKE that the Korean people must fight to regain their right to vote.

In an interview arranged the day before his police investigation for defamation charges related to Lee Jae-myung's past, former Ambassador Tantum pointed out, "The Korean people must be able to directly manage elections."

He stated that both condoning fraudulent elections and transferring the election commission to another department are "absurd," and argued, "The people must be able to count votes themselves, verify them themselves, and monitor them themselves."

He raised his voice, saying, "The Korean people are sick and tired of the election commission hiding facts and the National Assembly only trying to conceal them, and they are exhausted by a fake president pulling strings and trying to brush it all aside. Now is the time for the Korean people to rise up and reclaim their voting rights across Korea."

It was also pointed out that there are many aspects that can be called fraudulent elections, such as the ballot shortage occurring in 140 locations, discrepancies between the number of voters counted by hand and by the election commission's computer system, and the phenomenon of the number of votes published by the election commission decreasing.

In particular, former Ambassador Tantum also mentioned COC (Chain of Custody). He pointed out that the mere fact of a broken seal is evidence of an illegal act, and that this is being overlooked, even to the point where scenes of seals being broken and ballots being inserted have been publicly shown.

For these reasons, former Ambassador Tantum emphasized that the Korean people must directly conduct "transparent elections using same-day voting, manual counting, and paper ballots." He added that fairness must be secured by allowing international election observers to investigate the sites, and an election system must be established that can be managed according to the will of the people.

Former Ambassador Tantum argued that entrusting this matter to the National Assembly will not lead to a proper solution and that citizens must take the initiative.

Furthermore, former Ambassador Tantum stated that just as former President Rhee Syng-man took responsibility for the fraudulent elections at the time and resigned, even though it was not directly related to him, Lee Jae-myung should also resign, and if he does not step down voluntarily, he should be impeached.

Former Ambassador Tantum said that Lee Jae-myung is responsible for this election situation and that the people should demand his resignation.

He also stated that the National Assembly, which was formed through fraudulent elections, should be dissolved.

Immediately after the remarks by former Ambassador Moss Tantum, lawyer Kim Jung-chul, a Seoul mayoral candidate for the Reform Party, held a press conference at the National Assembly Communication Center with floor leader Cheon Ha-ram and exposed the election commission's attempt to destroy evidence.

Reform Party floor leader Cheon Ha-ram (left) and 6/3 local election Seoul mayoral candidate Kim Jung-chul hold a press conference at the National Assembly on the 23rd regarding the results of a request for evidence preservation filed with the court immediately after the ballot shortage incident for the Songpa-gu Election Commission in Seoul. At the press conference, candidate Kim, who had filed for evidence preservation with the court, urged, "The Election Commission hastily processed it by dissolving it without even a waste transfer document, despite the court's preservation order," and demanded, "Compulsory investigation into the Election Commission's intentional destruction of ballots in Jamsil is necessary." [Yonhap News] 

Candidate Kim had applied for evidence preservation for ballot boxes and other items and received permission from the court. However, by the time the Election Commission was contacted, it had already sent 7,460 kilograms of paper, including these ballot boxes and other printed materials, to a landfill in Guri City for "dissolution."

The request for evidence preservation was made on June 8th, and the dissolution occurred on the 9th. This action was taken the day after the request for evidence preservation. Presiding Judge Kim Ji-yeon of the Civil Division 51 at the Eastern Seoul District Court granted Candidate Kim's request for evidence preservation on the 12th.

While materials from other regions have not yet been processed, the fact that only the materials from Songpa-gu, Seoul, were preemptively removed and dissolved is being pointed out as destruction of evidence in violation of the court's evidence preservation decision.

Candidate Kim argues that the failure to create a transfer document when discarding 7.4 tons of printed materials and responding to the court's order to submit data with 'non-existence' constitutes evidence of intentional destruction of evidence.

In this situation, suspicions that there was evidence of fraudulent elections in the Songpa-gu materials are inevitably growing.

Despite the daily stream of evidence and suspicions of fraudulent elections, the police, the election commission, and the National Assembly are focusing only on the ballot shortage incident and are ignoring investigations or inquiries into fraudulent elections.

Former Ambassador Tantum referred to the freedom of expression and freedom of the press as stipulated in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Korea is a signatory, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Korea ratified in 1990. He added that these are legally binding international treaties that recognize the freedom of opinion and expression as rights, and that these are also guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Korea.

In light of these circumstances, it remains to be seen whether a re-election can be held through direct voting and counting by the people, as advocated by former Ambassador Tantum.

NNP=Chief Reporter Hong Sung-gu / Special Correspondent for this newspaper NNP info@newsandpost.com