단상斷想

President Jae-myung Lee has passed 50 days in office. The beginning is going smoothly. His approval rating exceeds 60%, but it is said that President Lee's reaction is that he is 'not satisfied'. This includes a 'cute' disappointment that his approval rating is not as high as expected, but as a regime that has risen through the impeachment of Yoon Seok-yeol, the public's expectations will be extraordinary, and it also reads as a lack of 'fuel' to confidently promote the normalization of state affairs and reform work with the power of that support.

To that extent, reform will come to President Lee as his greatest 'task'. As the progressive regimes of former Presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Moon Jae-in have witnessed reforms being rendered useless by conservative regimes, there will be a sense of duty to somehow achieve 'Lee Jae-myung-style reform' this time, along with a leader's 'greed'.

Considering the overall political situation, now is the best time for President Lee Jae-myung's reform efforts. Because the Democratic Party has 167 seats, which is more than a stable majority, any reform bill can be passed if the president has the will to legislate. Moreover, the opposition People Power Party has only 107 seats, which is a problem due to the lack of seats, but after the impeachment of Yoon Seok-yeol, they are not showing any presence as an opposition party and are rather facing a crisis of unconstitutional party dissolution.

Thus, all conditions for reform are ripe, and the surrounding environment is also pro-reform. Nevertheless, there is one worrying aspect. It is the establishment of a 'party-to-party relationship' with the Democratic Party. President Lee may firmly believe that the current Democratic Party is an 'ally' that will complete his reforms, but the power structure does not flow so amicably. At any time, the ruling Democratic Party can turn its back on President Lee, and even if it doesn't, it can isolate President Lee through 'sabotage' and 'neglect'.

It may be an overreaction, but I can see a strange tension between President Lee and the Democratic Party just 50 days after President Lee's inauguration. President Lee has revealed part of his hearing strategy for the 16 ministerial candidates. It is a unique personnel philosophy that "when appointing ministers, all of them should be appointed at once, like a herd of buffaloes crossing a river." This is a metaphor for the situation in which buffaloes jump into the water at the same time to avoid being eaten by beasts when crossing a river.

However, in the process, former Minister of Education nominee Lee Jin-sook ultimately failed to cross the river like the other nominees. She was not eaten by a beast, but abandoned by her master and failed to cross the river. The other precarious "buffalo," Minister of Gender Equality and Family nominee Kang Sun-woo, arrived on the other side of the river for the time being thanks to her master's "carry by the collar." Without President Lee Jae-myung's consideration, nominee Kang would have been abandoned at the river's mouth along with nominee Lee.

In fact, candidate Kang Sun-woo's 'abuse of power controversy' is an issue that our society takes quite sensitively, in that it is a unilateral 'lynching' of the weak by the strong. Given that the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family itself is a ministry for consideration and support for the socially vulnerable, Candidate Kang's 'forced appointment' suggests that the seeds of controversy will remain.

In the political arena, there was a time when the opinion that President Lee would also drop Candidate Kang was dominant, but the atmosphere changed drastically to 'rescue' ahead of the final selection. Regarding this, Senior Political Secretary Woo Sang-ho said, "I believe that the opinion of the ruling party leadership had the most influence on President Lee's decision to 'maintain the nomination'."

Chief Secretary Woo said that President Lee agonized for a full day before making this decision. In particular, he revealed that "in fact, there was a fairly high public opinion that both of them were not acceptable," indicating that President Lee felt considerable pressure regarding carrying candidate Kang Seon-woo to the end.

Nevertheless, President Lee pushed ahead with the appointment. Regarding this, a reaction is coming from the ruling party that 'President Lee had no choice but to choose Kang Seon-woo.' The current Democratic Party can be said to be a 'lifesaver' that protected President Lee Jae-myung, whose political life went back and forth between heaven and hell due to judicial risks, until the end.

In addition, the fact that a large number of incumbent lawmakers from the party were appointed in this first cabinet reshuffle is interpreted as a stable personnel appointment that reduces the risk of verification, but the fact that it is a large-scale 'reward for merit' for those who contributed to the presidential election cannot be ignored. For President Lee, when he was the Governor of Gyeonggi Province, there were few footholds for the Democratic Party to challenge the presidential election other than the '7-member group'.

However, he succeeded in attracting many lawmakers to the 'pro-Lee faction' through the arrest warrant situation. It is also true that candidate Kang Sun-woo was not originally a pro-Lee, but developed comradeship with President Lee through the 'struggle' process.

President Lee is a politician who is quite sensitive to public opinion. His usual personnel style is to ruthlessly and coldly cut off figures who are controversial or have been criticized by public opinion. Therefore, regarding the recent controversy over candidate Kang Sun-woo's abuse of power, President Lee is said to have meticulously asked his aides about the facts and tried to set a standard for personnel decisions.

Just because President Lee pushes ahead with the appointment of candidate Kang does not mean that all the allegations of abuse of power surrounding him have been cleared. Rather, allegations of budget abuse against former Minister of Gender Equality and Family Chung Young-ae are also emerging, and the Kang Sun-woo issue is likely to become a bigger headache for the Lee Jae-myung government in the future.

Nevertheless, President Lee chose the adventure of embracing his election contributors and taking on the political burden himself. Rather than not giving up on Candidate Kang's 'outstanding' abilities until the end, it is more reasonable to see it as showing a symbolic 'love for the party' by feeling a sense of debt to the Democratic Party and paying off that debt this time.

Currently, it is difficult to fathom President Jae-myung Lee's exact intentions regarding Candidate Kang Sun-woo's future, so there are cautious aspects. As for President Lee, he may have been more tempted to drive strongly after dismissing Candidate Kang with the feeling of 'weeping and beheading Ma Su' for the strong promotion of future reforms.

For this President, the historical evaluation of being a reformer is more politically valuable than appearing favorable to Democratic Party lawmakers who believe in camaraderie and the invincibility of incumbents, such as "protecting Kang Sun-woo."

Presidents tend to feel the "calling" of being the supreme leader of state affairs more strongly the moment they leave the party. Yoon Suk-yeol overdid it with emergency martial law because he felt that "calling" too strongly, but for this President, the desire to separate from the Democratic Party, the driving force, and freely roam the universe of reform will be greater. This is similar to how previous presidents were passive in "party-government relations" or tried not to be drawn into the party's centripetal force, leading to political conflicts.

In this situation, if President Lee had been pressured by not only floor leader Kim Byung-ki but also party leadership contender Chung Chung-rae and others to maintain the "nomination of Kang Sun-woo" and had "succumbed" to it, there is a possibility that President Lee's reform efforts would not go smoothly in the future. If "protecting Kang Sun-woo" was achieved as a negative example of President Lee's right to 인사 being swayed by the pressure of the 'party leadership' and not being exercised according to his beliefs, it would cast a dark shadow on Lee Jae-myung's reforms in the future.

Looking at past administrations, the relationship between the president and the ruling party has been seen as a cooperative relationship of interdependence. However, the reality is that the ruling party has also revealed an unwanted tension with the presidential office due to the destiny of recreating the next power.

The nomination may be maintained because President Lee wants to protect candidate Kang Sun-woo 'personally'. However, if President Lee's right to personnel autonomy is 'violated' due to strong pressure from the ruling party's leadership, it is not simply a check on the ruling party's presidential personnel authority, but President Jae-myung Lee's reform roadmap itself may be disrupted by the party's pressure and resistance, which could be a serious matter.

The moment the election ends, power is split in two. Right now, both Jung Chung-rae and Park Chan-dae are unanimously shouting "Defend Lee Jae-myung," but there are no two suns under the sky, and power cannot be 'shared,' so it is ruthless. In this respect, Lee Jae-myung's reform is destined to reach the landing point only with the self-generated power of the people's approval rating. I wish President Lee Jae-myung the best of luck.