President Lee: “Demanding senior posts despite lacking the ability ... attacking from within under the banner of radical reform”

[Financial News] President Lee Jae-myung took direct aim at hardliners in the ruling camp on the 9th, saying, “Pure radicalism may be a problem, but what is more problematic is demanding senior posts despite lacking the ability, trying to make personnel appointments and even national policy go your way, and, when that fails, invoking lofty causes to promote radical reform and attack from within.”
Lee shared an op-ed by former Seoul education superintendent Cho Hee-yeon on X (formerly Twitter) that day, making these remarks. In the piece, Cho analyzed divisions within the Democratic Party of Korea, which had become fractured around the time of its national convention.
In particular, Lee quoted a passage from Cho’s op-ed: “What turned comrades into enemies? It began with a pure longing for a better world. The tragedy began when that longing became absolute. The moment one believes a revolution is at the doorstep, the obstacle is not only the enemy on the other side but also someone on our side who slows the advance.”
Lee also shared Cho’s words: “At last, a reversal takes place. It is no longer that comrades are attacked for the sake of revolution; the act of attacking comrades itself becomes the revolution.” He also shared this passage: “When fighters gave themselves, body and soul, to a sacrificial struggle, they were the embodiment of purity. But the moment the revolution (a self-sacrificing movement) becomes the system (power), a self-interested gaze seeps into the foundations of purity, and the dynamics of personal and factional politics take hold.”
Lee’s post appears to have been prompted by recent opposition within the ruling camp to the appointment of Kim Ji-yong as a candidate for chief of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency. Choo Mi-ae, governor of Gyeonggi Province, Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Yong-min, and Im Eun-jeong, head of the Gwangju Regional Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, have also publicly opposed Kim’s candidacy.
This could also be read as criticism of the public opposition to Lee’s prosecution reform plan from forces across the ruling camp, including writer Yoo Si-min and Cho Kuk, former leader of the Rebuilding Korea Party (RKP).

[email protected] Seong Seok-woo Reporter