단상斷想

Choo Mi-ae's recent remarks are not about the governor's conscience, but a political act of openly pressuring the president within the ruling party, using her clear stance as a weapon. On September 10, on Kim Eo-jun's YouTube channel, she asserted that 'there is no other reason' for the decline in President Lee Jae-myung's approval ratings. She argued that prosecutorial reform is more important than constitutional amendment, and that supporters would become skeptical the moment concerns about backlash arose. Two days later, at the memorial service for victims of the democratization movement at Moran Park in Namyangju, she was even more explicit. 'If people united to overcome rebellion and restore constitutional order, shouldn't the president punish these forces? Why is he clinging to these forces, constantly worried?' Regarding the candidate for the head of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, she asked, 'Is it democratization or upholding the will of the sovereign people for someone who is in the same boat as Han Dong-hoon to become the first head?' The governor publicly judged the president's personnel appointments and state affairs policy, using the pretext of a memorial ceremony for provincial residents.

The surface of these words is reform. The true intention is a struggle for the interpretation of power. Differences between hardliners and moderates regarding the speed of reform in the early stages of a government exist in any administration. However, Choo Mi-ae transformed that difference not into policy debate, but into moral stigmatization. Adjusting the pace is weakness, balancing personnel is contradiction, and being mindful of the departure of centrist voters is clinging to rebellious forces, constantly worried. Speaking this way is exhilarating for hardline supporters. However, the price of that exhilaration is paid not by the president, but by the party and the government. Lee Jae-myung's remarks after his visit to France, 'We must also be wary of radical incitement that causes resistance and counter-mobilization, thereby hindering reform,' and 'If you have authority, you must bear corresponding unlimited responsibility,' were not abstract admonitions. They were a realistic diagnosis that the competition for a clear stance pushes away centrist voters and erodes the momentum of state affairs. Choo Mi-ae directly rejected that diagnosis. The key point is that the position from which she rejected it was that of Gyeonggi Province Governor.

The most generous interpretation of his intentions is 'completion of prosecutorial reform.' More honestly, it's an attempt to establish his and the hardline bloc's raison d'être on the President's hesitation. His agreement with Cho Kuk's distinction between dismissal and withdrawal of charges, saying '100% correct,' is along the same lines. The moment a provincial governor publicly asserts how a criminal case related to the President should be handled as if it were a straightforward matter, it ceases to be about provincial administration and becomes a megaphone for an intra-party factional struggle. A megaphone always cloaks itself in conscience. However, when conscience borrows the title of governor, that conscience is already politics. His statement at the memorial service, 'I came today not as a governor, but as a conscience who lived in this era,' is a self-absolution. If he wants to speak without the title, he should resign the title. To claim conscience while retaining the title is to avoid responsibility while only reaping the benefits of authority.

On the other other side of that benefit lies the reality of Gyeonggi Province. Choo Mi-ae declared a financial emergency and cut expenditures by hundreds of billions of won. Postpartum care benefits were cut after the last applications, and petitions far exceeded the response criteria. Credit guarantee contributions decreased, medical center personnel expenses were omitted, and projects related to opportunity income and youth were cut. At the same time, there was virtually silence on the controversy surrounding the 1.2 billion won jeonse for her official residence. When a financial emergency and the luxury of her own residence overlap on the same screen, what the residents read is not a structural explanation but a distortion of priorities. The concentration of tax revenue in acquisition tax and the stagnation of transactions due to land transaction permits and public housing policies may be structural problems. The expansionary fiscal policy and repeated issuance of local bonds by the previous provincial administration can also be examined. However, if the person speaking about that structure dedicates more passion to the President's prosecutorial appointments and approval rating analysis in the same week, it is not an administrator's diagnosis but a politician's evasion. The attitude of trying to solve difficult provincial administration solely through central tax reform and increased national funding is also the same. Reaching out to the central government while publicly criticizing it is not negotiation but pressure. If pressure doesn't work, all that remains is reduced welfare for residents and increased distrust.

The statement 'It is wrong to attack the government' does not mean that one should remain silent unconditionally if they belong to the same party. It means asking whether one's position allows for such an attack. A member of the National Assembly can fight. A party leader can dispute policies. A critic can push the president. The Governor of Gyeonggi Province is the administrative head of 14 million residents. That position is not a platform for publicly admonishing the Blue House, but rather a position that actually manages revenue, welfare, transportation, housing, disasters, and conflicts between cities and counties. To say 'just take good care of provincial affairs' is not an emotional insult but an order of duty. In a home where postpartum care expenses have been cut off, in a provincial office where the controversy over official residences has not been clarified, and in a situation where cities and counties perceive tax reform as 'financial plunder,' if the governor elevates the punishment of rebellious forces as the top priority of the era, the message is one: The center of this provincial administration is not Gyeonggi Province.

The fatal thing is that this deviation from the center divides the Democratic Party internally. Hardliners take Choo Mi-ae's direct attacks as a sign of legitimacy. Pragmatists and the working line of state administration interpret it as public sabotage. The moment one concludes that the only reason for the president's declining approval rating is 'nothing but prosecutorial reform,' the complex factors of real estate, people's livelihoods, diplomacy, finance, and personnel failures are erased. The erased space is filled with a narrative of conspiracy and betrayal. That narrative does not unite the party. It transforms into the language of purges, determining who the true reformists are. If the language of purges becomes normalized within the ruling party, it will fracture on its own even without attacks from the opposition. Choo Mi-ae does not seem to intend to take responsibility for that fracture. She has already raised the shield of 'conscience' and 'historical task.' Behind that shield, the failure of provincial administration and internal party division become someone else's responsibility.

The unlimited responsibility of those in power does not apply only to the president. It also applies to the provincial governor. Choo Mi-ae exercises power but shirks responsibility. She claims to have the right to speak about the contradictions in prosecutorial appointments, but she blames the system, her predecessors, and the central government for the political costs of suspending postpartum care benefits, official residences, conflicts between cities and counties, and expenditure cuts. This is not firmness but asymmetry. An asymmetry where the standards used to condemn others are not applied to oneself. If this asymmetry persists, the party will have two moralities. One is a morality that targets the president and the government, and the other is a morality that covers up the failures of local power. A party where two moralities coexist cannot last long.

What Choo Mi-ae needs is not direct attacks from the memorial stage, but the silent administration that actually manages Gyeonggi Province's affairs. If prosecutorial reform is important, she should return to being a member of the National Assembly and make laws. If purging forces of rebellion is a task of the times, she should do it in the arena of the party's official policy struggle. Branding the president as an 'anxious' figure while maintaining the governorship is not reform but an overreach of power. Overreach can temporarily rally hardline supporters. However, that rally pushes away moderates, distorts the pace of state affairs, turns practical factions within the party into enemies, and ultimately erodes the support base of the entire ruling power. If Choo Mi-ae then turns around and says, 'I said what I had to say,' the remaining people are left to deal with the division and the responsibility for the diminished numbers.

Will she take responsibility for the division within the Democratic Party that excessive political interference will bring? Given her current attitude, the answer is closer to no. She has already replaced responsibility with conscience. If this replacement is repeated, the party will become a contest of clarity, not a reform party. The winner of the contest receives applause for a moment. The losers are the government, the provincial residents, and the party members who must face the next election. The reason Choo Mi-ae's remarks are dangerous is not because her words are harsh. It's because her words are misplaced, their target is the lifeline of a fellow government, and she is unwilling to bear the cost of her words. Clarity that fails to take responsibility for provincial administration is not justice, but a catalyst for division. Will she continue to sprinkle this catalyst, or will she belatedly return to her position as governor? That choice is almost the only political responsibility left to Choo Mi-ae now.

Recently, a petition for Governor Choo Mi-ae's resignation is underway.

https://petitions.gg.go.kr/view/?uid=28276