단상斷想

The 21st presidential election ended with the victory of Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party of Korea candidate. The extreme chaos of the destruction of the constitutional government of the Republic of Korea, triggered by the declaration of martial law around 10 p.m. on December 3, 2024, stopped its clock in just six months. It is fortunate, and I even feel grateful to President Lee Jae-myung, who greatly contributed to preventing the crisis of national collapse at this level.

President Lee delivered his final campaign speech in Yeouido on the night of June 2, reminiscing about the 'Revolution of Light'. Unlike usual, his expression remained stern throughout, and a sense of solemnity and determination was evident throughout the speech. President Lee Jae-myung has been running forward to seize power, but now, deep anguish and concern were seen about how to use the sword of power in his hand well.

President Lee Jae-myung will immediately enter the 'real world' of state affairs without a transition committee. Fortunately, President Lee has accumulated 'work handover' know-how through his experience as the mayor of Seongnam and the governor of Gyeonggi Province, so there is no prospect of immediate confusion in the state affairs vacuum.

In fact, President Lee may not be a complete leader like Kim Dae-jung, but he seems to be a perfect evolving leader with his smart learning ability and rich administrative experience. Aides who have assisted Lee Jae-myung for a long time say, "If you work under him, you shouldn't think about being cunning. He has a much better understanding of the current situation than the person doing the work, and he has a unique ability to look down on the work from above. In particular, he is excellent at comprehensively handling related issues together in one-stop."

In particular, it is right to say that there is no one in the current political arena who has both administrative and political power like Lee Jae-myung because he also has the 'party affairs' skills he learned while leading the overwhelming victory in the 22nd general election. At this point, when state affairs are almost paralyzed due to the president's impeachment and the economy has collapsed, our people have chosen the best 'alternative'.

Nevertheless, there is one thing I would like to earnestly ask of President Lee Jae-myung. When the Lee Jae-myung era opens, most of the media, including the conservative media, will likely offer advice or issue countless 'sincere suggestions' to the President. I am also reluctant to slyly join the group, but I would like to focus on just one thing and make a suggestion.

In the last episode, I asked President Lee Jae-myung to usher in a politics of conviction and unity. If this is the hardware of the Lee Jae-myung administration, there will be many kinds of software to fill it. Among them, I hope that the President, based on his various administrative experiences and party affairs operations, will have a firm will to secure and nurture the autonomy, independence, and star quality of ministers, and to implement them.

In fact, any country can fall. If you meet an outstanding leader, it will prosper, but if a poor ruler emerges who wastes national power on absurd things, the people will suffer and the country will be ruined. We have had such a bitter experience for the past three years. It is the result of the people silently enduring, and thanks to the opposition party holding the center without further collapsing the collapsing country.

However, the important thing when a country falls is how quickly and firmly it rises again. I would like to call it the resilience of politics. The dictionary definition of resilience is "the property or ability to overcome failure or negative situations and regain the original stable psychological state." It also refers to the psychological ability to get back on your feet even after experiencing difficulties or trials.

For the past three years, Yoon Suk-yeol has been mindlessly ruining the country as a private playground for himself and Kim Keon-hee. The Yoon couple played with the Republic of Korea as a toy to satisfy their vanity of power, and devastated the national system and political system.

For the past six months, while cracking down on insurgents (which is still far from complete), we cannot know how devastated our Republic of Korea is. There is no way they would know if they put their own stethoscope on their body. An excellent leader must appear and conduct a thorough examination of the overall system of the Republic of Korea once again. This is the basic, essential, and top priority duty of President Lee Jae-myung.

However, resilience to broken politics is not simply ‘recovery’. It is not a matter of 'restoring' politics to before the Yoon Seok-yeol regime. The resilience of politics that I expect refers to the ability and alternatives to absorb the shock of constitutional destruction and create a better system without repeating the existing vulnerable structure.

I would like to define the core of political resilience damaged after the emergency martial law as 'fully fulfilling one's responsibilities in one's respective positions'. Only when people from all walks of life and figures perform their inherent functions and roles with autonomy and responsibility and respect each other's boundaries, can the sprouts of reform and innovation sprout in a devastated society.

Yoon Seok-yeol committed a barbaric act during the state of emergency by abusing his position as president to violate the autonomy and independence of his subordinate soldiers and exploiting their loyalty as a tool for personal retaliation. Not arbitrarily infringing on the domain of subordinates as president, but ensuring their autonomy, domain, and responsibility, and allowing each person to keep their position is the essence of political resilience.

In this regard, it may be a slightly micro problem for President Jae-myung Lee, but there is one thing I hope for. Do not leave the ministers you will appoint in the future as wooden figures, do not seat them in the Cabinet meeting as sacks of barley that the president should rebuke, admonish, and enlighten, but nurture them to exert their maximum capabilities by squeezing out every last bit of strength they have, and "take care" of their autonomy and independence.

In fact, even during the Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung administrations, the public knew the names of the ministers of most ministries and were very interested in even minor gossip. That's because they had power. That power is a positive driving force for state administration that naturally followed as the president fully delegated his power to the ministers.

But from some regime onwards, the minister became a 'nobody' and turned into a 'child watching for cues,' flattering the president and looking after his mood. It's not that the Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung administrations were better at governing the country than now.

I would like to focus on the relationship of power. During the Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung administrations, most of the ministers were 'comrades' who had shared joys and sorrows with their 'boss' for decades. Naturally, there was a kind of 'consciousness of co-occupation' (同占意識) regarding the power they had acquired with difficulty.

Power is not something you acquire alone, but something you gain 'together' with your comrades. Furthermore, a wiser leader would think that the people created it. If so, that power should be used according to each person's function and status. The moment the president thinks it is their exclusive property, dictatorship begins. If the president thinks of it as 'crumbs' and manages subordinates by giving them small pieces, corruption will become rampant.

The concentration and skewing of power gave birth to an unstoppable monster called Yoon Seok-yeol. Paradoxically, a leader's power grows when it is shared. Yoon Seok-yeol may have believed he had power on the surface, but Yoon's power was a dud to the point where even a single colonel would not carry out the commander-in-chief's 'stupid order'. If Yoon Seok-yeol had guaranteed and respected the autonomy and independence of soldiers as much as possible during martial law, they might have helped Yoon 'humanly', beyond a simple superior-subordinate relationship.

But now, is there even a single subordinate who helps Yoon Suk-yeol personally and gives favorable testimony in court, other than Kim Yong-hyun, the greatest flatterer in the world and former Minister of National Defense? There isn't. This is the bitter end of power that has become a private plaything.

President Lee Jae-myung has the heavy responsibility of resilience for ruined politics on his shoulders. If several star ministers are born within 6 months of the Lee Jae-myung government's inauguration, I would like to accept that as a measure of the Lee Jae-myung regime's early success. To this end, it is important for President Lee Jae-myung to recognize ministers not as 'subordinates' who can be treated arbitrarily, but as partners in state affairs who respect their autonomy and protect their honor.

Lee Jae-myung's leadership should aim for 'reconstruction of politics' and resilience, not 'restoration of politics.' This is also the only way for Korean politics and society to choose 'real' evolution, not just recovery. I hope that many wise and attractive ministers will emerge in the Lee Jae-myung government.