Tag: politics

This was pretty dumb, you would think these politicians would know better than to have their phones out with cameras around:

The acting chairman of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) has apologized after a text conversation he had with President Yoon Suk-yeol was caught on camera, in which Yoon was seen backbiting about suspended party chief Lee Jun-seok.

PPP floor leader Kweon Seong-dong took over as acting leader of the party early this month after the party’s ethics committee suspended Lee’s party membership for six months over allegations of sexual bribery and a cover-up.

On Tuesday, Kweon was caught on press cameras writing a text message to Yoon on his mobile phone. The screen also showed earlier messages from Yoon saying he was happy with the change in the party’s leadership and took a swipe at Lee.

“Our party is doing a good job. We should keep this up,” Yoon wrote in the messages sent via Telegram. “Since the replacement of the party chair who used to shoot upon ourselves, our party has become different.”

Yoon was seen criticizing Lee for focusing on an internal fight rather than attacking the opposition party.

Kweon said in response, “We will uphold your wish, and show unity between the party and the government.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

He hasn’t been President very long, but a 32.5% approval rate is definitely something for the Yoon administration to be concerned about:

President Yoon Suk-yeol’s approval rating fell to 32.5 percent, with his disapproval rating rising to nearly twofold of his approval rating, a survey showed Wednesday.

The Rnsearch poll of 1,045 voters conducted from Saturday to Tuesday showed 32.5 percent of respondents approved of the way Yoon handled state affairs while 63.5 percent gave a negative assessment.

Yoon’s approval rating, which came in at 52.5 percent four weeks earlier, has been trending lower in the past month. After falling to 42.6 percent in the same poll a week ago, it plunged 10.1 percentage points to 32.5 percent this week.

In the same period, those who were unhappy with Yoon’s performance jumped from 43 percent to 63.5 percent.

The latest poll comes amid growing concerns over the economy and political turmoil at the ruling People Power Party (PPP).

Korea has been grappling with rising inflation and global supply chain disruptions, which prompted the central bank to deliver an unprecedented 0.5 percentage point rate hike early Wednesday.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It is looking like it is only a matter of time before ex-President Lee Myung-bak receives a pardon:

A high-level official in Yoon’s office told the JoongAng Ilbo Wednesday that the president will await the prosecutors’ decision. The head of the Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office, Hong Seung-wook, is known to be close to Yoon, who formerly served as head of the state prosecution agency.  
   
Even if Hong green-lights Lee’s suspension, the former president’s jail term will remain valid. Some legal experts predict Hong will authorize Lee’s suspension and Yoon will follow up with a presidential pardon on Liberation Day to finally set Lee free.  
   
Talk about a pardon for Lee has been going for months, especially after former conservative President Park Geun-hye was pardoned last December by former liberal President Moon Jae-in. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This is another sign that Korea’s conservative People Power Party continues to be on the rise in the wake of the election of Yoon Suk-yeol:

Leaders of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) on Thursday offered to quit the interim leadership committee en masse following the party’s crushing defeat in this week’s local elections.

Rep. Yoon Ho-jung and Park Ji-hyun, the DP’s co-interim chiefs, announced that all eight members of the party’s emergency leadership committee will step down to take responsibility for the defeat in Wednesday’s local elections.

The PPP won 12 out of 17 key races for big city mayors and provincial governors, including Seoul, while the DP won only five key races — three in its stronghold of the Jeolla provinces, as well as Gyeonggi and Jeju governorships.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but of note in this election is that Lee Jae-myung who ran against President Yoon was elected to a National Assembly seat out of Incheon and former Presidential Candidate who sided with Yoon was elected to a National Assembly seat in Bundang.

This is actually smart move by President Yoon to try and de-politicize the Gwangju Uprising issue from the liberals:

President Yoon Suk-yeol and some 100 lawmakers from the ruling People Power Party (PPP) traveled to the southwestern city of Gwangju on Wednesday and paid their respects to the victims of the 1980 pro-democracy uprising in an unprecedented outreach to the home turf of the main opposition party.

The civil revolt, in which Gwangju citizens rose up against the then military junta led by late former President Chun Doo-hwan, has long been associated with the liberal opposition Democratic Party (DP), and the conservative party has kept a distance from it amid perceptions its roots have ties to Chun.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like Lee Jae-myung and Ahn Cheol-soo are going to keep themselves relevant in South Korea’s politics by running for office again in the National Assembly:

Former presidential candidates Lee Jae-myung and Ahn Cheol-soo declared their bids, Sunday, for parliamentary seats in the June 1 by-elections, transforming the event to one of potentially high political stakes. 

Lee of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) is the former Gyeonggi Province governor who lost the March 9 presidential election to President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol by a razor-thin margin, while Ahn Cheol-soo, the head of Yoon’s transition committee, also ran for president and merged his campaign with Yoon’s days prior to the election.

Lee will run for the seat representing Incheon’s Gyeyang-B district, which has been vacant since former DPK Chairman Rep. Song Young-gil resigned to run in the Seoul mayoral election in April, while Ahn will run for seat representing Bundang-A district of Seongnam City, Gyeonggi Province, left by the Kim Eun-hye of the People Power Party (PPP), the former presidential transition committee spokesperson who is now running for the Gyeonggi provincial governor post. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

None of this is actually surprising to people who have been paying attention:

The incoming Yoon Suk-yeol administration finds itself in hot water over its policy roadmap for the next five years, as some of his key election pledges ― disbanding the gender equality ministry, raising soldiers’ salaries and deploying additional U.S. missile systems in South Korea ― have been missing from a list of key tasks.

Those pledges were used as catchy slogans throughout Yoon’s presidential election campaign, after his Facebook postings that promoted such ideas grabbed voters’ attention despite their low feasibility. As the pledges were exempt from the roadmap, however, the Yoon administration faces growing criticism for backing down from its pledges. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the Gender Ministry is not going any where because Yoon’s party does not control the National Assembly to actual make its abolishment law. As we have discussed before here on the ROK Drop the Yoon administration had talked of purchasing a THAAD battery. However, this is not something you just go to a car dealership and buy. This is a multi-year long process to purchase, build the battery, and train personnel for billions of dollars. As far as paying troops more that is a huge bill that means money needs to be taken from so where else when the current Moon administration is already running huge deficits.

These are all things that cannot immediately be implemented and thus focusing on more realizable short term goals initially is probably prudent for the Yoon administration.