단상斷想

A rather unfamiliar scene has been unfolding in the prosecution service in the past few days. On August 29, Dongbu District Prosecutor Lim Eun-jeong directly named five figures, including Justice Minister Jeong Seong-ho, as the "five enemies of prosecutorial reform" (Bong Wook, Senior Secretary for Civil Affairs at the Presidential Office, Lee Jin-soo, Vice Minister of Justice, Seong Sang-heon, Director of the Ministry of Justice's Prosecution Bureau, Kim Soo-hong, Director of the Ministry of Justice's Prosecution Division, and Noh Man-seok, Deputy Prosecutor General (Acting Prosecutor General)).

In particular, Prosecutor Lim strongly criticized that "even Minister Jeong Seong-ho is controlled by the prosecution." Prosecutor Lim deliberately directly attacked the control tower of prosecutorial reform when the possibility arose that prosecutorial reform would go according to the prosecutors' tastes. However, even if we consider the other figures, Minister Jeong Seong-ho is a subordinate public official under Prosecutor Lim's 'indirect command'. A kind of insubordination has occurred.

It is an unusual scene in government circles for a senior prosecutor to challenge the head of the Ministry of Justice. Of course, it is true that there is a kind of tension between the Ministry of Justice and the prosecution, but it is certain that a front-line prosecutor publicly criticizing the Minister of Justice as one of the 'five traitors' is a disrespectful situation that goes against the government's hierarchy.

In response, Presidential Chief of Political Affairs Woo Sang-ho warned Chief Prosecutor Lim in a broadcast, saying, "It is not a disagreement that cannot be resolved. However, personal attacks should not be made while discussing this issue." In particular, Chief Secretary Woo directly criticized, "The image of politicians who are promoting reforms or people within the prosecution fighting each other undermines the purpose of the reforms." Then, Chief Secretary Woo said, "It will all be sorted out soon," and "Don't worry."

However, most citizens are completely in the dark about difficult problems such as how the ruling party's prosecution reform is progressing, and how the behind-the-scenes power struggles will become obstacles to reform. Within the Democratic Party, there are forces that agree with Minister Jeong Seong-ho's gradual reform, and there are lawmakers who agree with Chief Prosecutor Lim Eun-jeong's radical reform plan.

Currently, the ruling party's "one-team spirit," which had been united in the fight until the presidential election, has disappeared, and factional divisions over prosecution reform are becoming full-blown. In particular, with next year's local elections approaching, some lawmakers who are greedy for local government heads are focusing only on clarity rather than the completeness of reform, and are pouring out hard-line reform proposals every day.

Because the support of hard-line party members increases the likelihood of becoming the head of an organization, the trend is toward a hard-line stance. A situation is also arising in which the presidential office or Justice Minister Jeong Seong-ho's prosecution reform plan is portrayed as conservative, further fueling controversy.

Witnessing this recent controversy over prosecutorial reform, doubts are also arising as to whether President Lee Jae-myung's reform can succeed. This prosecutorial reform "five traitors" incident is not simply a difference of opinion on the direction of prosecutorial reform. This is a fundamental difference in perspective on reform itself within the ruling party.

The possibility is also increasing that reform will not function as itself, but will be used as political leverage to create future power, or that it will flow into ostentatious reform that relies solely on popular appeal and populism without considering the consequences in order to satisfy personal success and desire for power.

The recent controversy over prosecutorial reform is taken as a serious matter in that it will determine the essence of the reforms that President Lee Jae-myung will pursue in the future. The process of institutional design and agreement is more important than a simple declaration for reform.

The important turning points in Korean modern politics have always been divided by the success and failure of reforms. The 1987 system ended authoritarianism but failed to institutionalize democracy and mature party politics. The 1997 regime change heralded the normalization of democracy, but it could not withstand the national crisis of the foreign exchange crisis and only spread neoliberal inequality. And the Candlelight Revolution in 2016 showed the rebirth of civic sovereignty, but institutional reform and political innovation were left unfinished due to former President Moon Jae-in's immature political power.

In this regard, Lee Jae-myung's reform is the last chance to complete these unfinished histories. The conservative party is already on the path to collapse. It has lost public trust by repeating state corruption, judicial risks, and authoritarian behavior. However, the fall of the conservatives does not necessarily lead to progress in reform.

Rather, there is a risk that the Democratic Party will replace the role of the conservative party and become a vested interest party, 'People Power Party Season 2'. At this point, Lee Jae-myung's reform is a test of whether the Democratic Party can establish itself as a true reform party without falling into the swamp of 'structural conservatism'.

Reform is not just a political choice, but an essential driving force for national development. Japan's 'Lost 30 Years' since the 1990s were the product of a lack of political leadership and failed reforms. Italy also failed to complete political reforms after the corruption scandals of politicians in the 1990s, leading to the collapse of the party system and the rise of populist politics.

On the other hand, Germany secured institutional stability through the political reforms of Adenauer and Brandt after the war, and Schröder's Agenda 2010, while the Nordic countries achieved a balance between the welfare state and democracy by continuing social democratic reforms. In this regard, Lee Jae-myung's reform can be said to be at a critical crossroads, whether to follow the path of failed reforms in Japan and Italy, or to follow the path of success in Germany.

In the modern political history of Korea, if Lee Jae-myung's reforms fail, we, like Japan and Italy, could see the public completely lose hope in politics and fall into a state of self-abandonment. Politics could lose the public's trust, structural growth stagnation and social polarization could become entrenched, and a 'political disability' crisis could occur where the country barely maintains its appearance while failing to solve any of the society's structural problems.

The People Power Party and its predecessors, conservative parties, have long functioned as the two main axes of Korean politics. However, in recent years, the conservative party has rapidly lost trust due to internal divisions, controversies over morality, and failure to respond to 시대적 changes. Former President Yoon Seok-yeol's declaration of martial law and the subsequent impeachment crisis starkly revealed the crisis of the conservative party.

The collapse of the conservative party is not simply limited to electoral defeat. In the Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice's evaluation of pledges, candidate Kim Moon-soo's economic policies were criticized for focusing on corporate-friendly deregulation and tax cuts, and lacking a vision for resolving inequality or structural reform. In the field of diplomacy and security, hard-line stances such as the redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons were also pointed out as limitations, as they clashed with the peace-oriented national identity.

This policy vacuum proves that the conservative party is failing to address the complex challenges of modern Korean society, such as low growth, polarization, youth unemployment, and regional extinction. The People Power Party now faces a situation where it is difficult to recover without internal reorganization and restructuring.

The People Power Party is likely to no longer function as a political party and remain a force for maintaining the power of individual lawmakers. This means that the conservative forces driving reform have disappeared. The only beacon of hope we can expect is the Democratic Party, but the purity and completeness of reform are threatened by the limitations of creating the next power and factional conflicts.

In the end, Lee Jae-myung is the only answer. Because he has risen to the presidential seat, Lee Jae-myung is the only existing politician who is equipped to complete reforms more purely and clearly than anyone else. Lee Jae-myung's reform is at a critical juncture in Korean modern political history. If his reforms are thwarted, Korea could fall deeper into chronic growth stagnation and political instability. Conversely, if Lee Jae-myung achieves economic recovery, social integration, and diplomatic stability while balancing unity and reform, he will be able to open a new paradigm in Korean politics.

Of course, Lee Jae-myung's reform is not the only alternative. But he, who has nowhere else to climb, can approach reform tasks more purely than anyone else. The partisan, factional, and power-oriented approaches to reform revealed in the current controversy over prosecutorial reform are like dangerous bombs that not only obscure Lee Jae-myung's reforms but also endanger the fate of the nation itself. If you want the completeness and purity of reform, look to Lee Jae-myung.