On December 7, 2011, at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul, Moon Jae-in made a solemn apology to the nation, saying that the political chaos had made the people worried and that I, as president, was deeply sorry and hoped that the chaos would not last but would be the last pain on the road to reform.
According to the polling agency’s report released on the same day, Moon Jae-in’s approval rate also suffered the biggest drop to 37.4 percent, and the ruling party, the United Democratic Party (UDP), was overtaken by the opposition National Democratic Force (NDF). The betrayal of progressive groups and women, who were seen as Moon’s base, was the most important reason for the decline.
The epidemic continues to worsen and the economic outlook is worrisome, but what is the way forward for Moon Jae-in, who is committed to reforming Korea’s bad governance?
I. Reforms suffer another setback
Note the three key words in Moon’s speech on July 7: chaos, reform, and pain.
The chaos came about because of the reform, and the pains came about because the reform was thwarted. The focal point of Moon’s reform is the long-criticized but well-established prosecutor system.
As a result of the distorted process of independence and modernization, Korea’s political system is riddled with flaws. In particular, almost all presidents have been unsuccessful because they were either forced to resign due to corruption or scandals involving their cronies, or were liquidated by their successors at the end of their terms. Among them, the prosecutors, who had great power and claimed to be independent but were inevitably involved in politics, were actively or passively used as tools of political struggle in the successive purges and became a stumbling block to the country’s political maturity.
As the successor of former President Roh Moo-hyun, Moon Jae-in, a representative of the progressive camp, has always regarded the prosecutor system as an important part of the national political reform. In the latest confrontation, however, Moon and his Democratic Unionist Party, which controls Cheong Wa Dae and the National Assembly, failed to shake the prosecutor’s system, which is gradually merging with the conservatives, and instead got into trouble.
On November 24, Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae, who is supported by Moon Jae-in and is pushing for the reform of the prosecutor system, suspended Prosecutor General Yoon Suk-yue for his family’s involvement in a fund fraud case related to LIME, a fund management company. This is the first time in Korea’s history that the Minister of Justice has suspended the Prosecutor General, and it is essentially a declaration of war by the government against the prosecutors in order to seize powers such as investigative command.
In Korea, although the Attorney General is nominally under the control of the Ministry of Justice, in reality, prosecutors maintain a high degree of independence and power. The core of Moon’s reform is the separation of police and prosecutors’ investigative powers, which were originally held by prosecutors, from the police search power. At the same time, the Criminal Investigation Division of top public officials was established to strengthen the supervision of prosecutors and other judicial officials.
In the evening of November 25, Yoon applied to the court to suspend the suspension order, and on November 26, Yoon filed an administrative lawsuit against Ae Kyu Mi-ae, asking for the suspension order to be lifted. Prior to the court’s decision, Korean prosecutors spoke out again, accusing Choumi-ae’s decision of violating the law.
In the face of the embracing prosecutors, Moon called on all parties not to put departmental interests above the national interest. In the past few days, he has been working on a project to develop a new model for the U.S. government. Thus, Moon Jae-in’s reform of the prosecutor system was once again stalled.
II. Cracks in the Basic Disk
Although this is not the first setback to Moon’s reforms, the consequences of this setback are not comparable to those of the previous ones. This is because the supporters of what has been called the Moon Jae-in Concrete Plate are already showing signs of polarization and loosening, undermining the very foundation of Moon and the JDP.
In 2017, Moon won the election on the back of South Korea’s disgust and anger at his predecessor, conservative President Park Geun-hye. Reform is imperative, both out of personal ambition and public opinion. In September last year, Moon appointed Cho Guk, a trusted former chief secretary for civil affairs in the Cheong Wa Dae secretariat, as the Minister of Justice to push forward the reform of the prosecutor system. But only 35 days later, Cho was forced to resign after prosecutors caught him in a scandal involving his children’s forged certificates for admission to elite schools.
President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating plummeted to 39% after a march of 3 million people on the streets of Seoul in response to the Cho-Kuk scandal.
On the surface, 39% does not seem to be much different from the 37.4% shown in the poll, but it is not. According to the analysis, support for progressive groups dropped 8.2% from last week, support for neutral groups dropped 4.2%, and support for Moon Jae-in among women plummeted 9.9%. It should be noted that Moon Jae-in won the election with only 41.09% of the vote.
Of course, polls are always volatile. But public opinion is a perishable commodity that cannot be tossed and turned. At the beginning of this year, thanks to the excellent response to the epidemic at the beginning of the outbreak, especially the attention and praise of the Western mainstream media, the Moon Jae-in administration’s public support rose to a historic high of 62%. However, when the public’s perception of the epidemic turns from initial focus to fatigue, the economy and people’s livelihood are the key factors that determine the rise and fall of public opinion.
In the case of housing prices, an issue of concern to everyone in Korea, condominium and land prices have risen wildly in the past three years of the Moon Jae-in administration, and the rate of increase is 4.5 times higher than that of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye’s nine years. Over the past three years, the Moon Jae-in administration has enacted a total of 24 real estate control policies, but apartment prices in Seoul have risen 52% under strict control, causing countless people, especially young people, to complain. In a September poll, Moon’s approval rating dropped to 45%, while his disapproval rating rose to 44%, with the biggest reason for his disapproval being the new property market policy.
In the economic field, the Moon Jae-in administration’s performance is even more mixed. Under the Trump administration, deteriorating relations between Japan and South Korea, and the neo-crowning epidemic, the Korean economy has continued to weaken during Moon’s tenure, and the unemployment rate is at its highest since the 1997 Asian financial crisis. This, coupled with the setback in the improvement of relations between the North and the South, has put Moon in a dilemma in almost all aspects of politics, economics, and diplomacy.
What is more, the antiepidemic achievements that contributed to Moon Jae-in’s reversal at the beginning of the year became a bubble as the epidemic worsened during the winter. With a national pandemic looming on the horizon, Seoul’s epidemic preparedness level was raised to 2.5 for three weeks starting from August 8, and a large number of economic activities were once again suspended, even the iconic Seoul New Year’s bell-ringing ceremony was canceled for the first time in 67 years.
In other words, although the Thu-Yun dispute is the direct cause of Moon’s decline in public opinion, the cracks in his basic plate indicate that there is an even bigger crisis behind his seemingly common sluggishness.
iii. no immediate worries, distant worries
So will Moon Jae-in repeat the same mistake that forced Park Geun-hye to resign?
At this point, it seems unlikely.
On the one hand, the irreversibility of these fundamental divisions will depend on a series of responses to the epidemic and the economy that Moon Jae-in is trying to salvage, and on December 4, he announced a minor reshuffle of his cabinet, with the replacement of the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism attracting much attention, which was seen as a sign of his dissatisfaction with the property market policy. On the other hand, due to the neo-crowning epidemic, the space for the opposition parties to hold rallies has been greatly reduced, and it is unlikely that the scene of millions of people taking to the streets to protest against the government will be repeated as it was last year.
However, although Moon Jae-in’s presidency is safe for the time being, there is no optimism in the election of the Democratic Unionist Party.
With another general election coming up in 2022, the opposition party, National Power, has now surpassed the ruling United Democratic Party (29.7%) in popularity (31.3%). The winner of the Thu-Yun contest, Yoon Suk-Yeol, has not only surged in popularity and is now at odds with the two top candidates, Lee Lo-Yeon and Lee Jae-Myung, but has also lost his alliance with Moon Jae-in. The popular Yoon Suk-yue has become an important variable in the 2022 election, even though he may not join the National Force.
Meanwhile, the recent scandal involving Lee Lo-yeon, a representative of the Democratic Unionist Party, is still festering. His deputy chief of staff, Mr. Lee, died mysteriously after being summoned by the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office on the 2nd of February on suspicion that he was involved in a public relations bribery incident at Optimus Asset Management. Currently, the opposition party is calling for the establishment of a special investigation team under Yoon Suk-young, and for the ruling party to stop covering it up in the name of respecting the dead, as it did when former Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon committed suicide. The government has not pursued the matter further, but the incident has made it more difficult for Moon’s prosecutorial reform and easier for him to be questioned.
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