President Lee Jae Myung, center, walks toward Air Force One with Democratic Party Chair Kim Min-seok, left, who came to see him off at Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, on Sept. 6 before Lee departed for a state visit to France.YONHAP
Ko Jung-ae
The author is the editor-in-chief at the JoongAng Sunday.
There was a time when mentioning a “lame duck” presidency was taboo. Even under Roh Tae-woo, who began with an opposition-dominated National Assembly and was derided as a weak president, the media could not use the term until well past his presidency’s midpoint. The Kim Dae-jung administration, launched through the DJP alliance between Kim and Kim Jong-pil, passed its halfway mark with then-presidential chief of staff Han Kwang-ok declaring, “There is no lame duck in the People’s Government.” The phenomenon existed, but one could not say so. The term remains sensitive today, particularly early in a presidency.
During the ruling party’s recent leadership race, candidates warned that electing certain rivals would trigger a lame duck. But the winner was someone who declared he was certain President Lee Jae Myung would experience “not even one degree of lame duck” until his final day in office. In context, the term was merely a weapon in a party power struggle.
Then late last month, I saw fellow journalist Sung Han-yong at a progressive outlet write a column headlined, “President Lee faces a second-year crisis — how can he avoid [being] an early lame duck?” Lee had been in office only about 14 months at the time. That was fast.
In fact, Lee has a power base that any president elected under the post-1987 system would envy. The “Yoon Suk Yeol base effect” makes Lee appear a better leader simply by occupying the presidency after his incarcerated predecessor. Lee commands an overwhelming parliamentary majority, with no obvious No. 2 figure challenging him.
His leadership style has further reinforced that strength. True to his own remark that “power must be exercised ruthlessly,” Lee pushes authority to its limits, undeterred by breaking convention.
As president, Lee Jae Myung has dismantled the prosecution service and is unilaterally reshaping the Supreme Court. He has extracted commitments from conglomerates for 800 trillion won ($553 billion) in semiconductor investment in the southwestern region and proposed creating a separate 162 trillion won “Future Response Fund.” He carefully looks after his own people, sometimes shows generosity and casts opponents aside. Power that defies expectations tends to generate tension — or fear.
A thinker 500 years ago assessed this kind of leadership: effectively confronting enemies, building alliances, conquering through force or deception, securing loyalty and fear from the people, neutralizing those capable of causing harm, replacing old institutions with new ones and disbanding disloyal forces to create new ones. That thinker was Niccolò Machiavelli in “The Prince” (1532).
So talk of a “lame duck” stands out.
Recent polling trends have admittedly been troubling. Lee’s job approval fell to 40 percent in last week’s Gallup Korea survey, while some recent automated-response polls put it below 40 percent.
Housing problems and stock market instability may be factors, along with the unilateral dismantling of parts of the criminal justice system, including the abolition of prosecutors’ supplementary investigative authority and distrust of an increasingly powerful police force. But doubts about Lee’s governance itself may also be growing.
Lee has cultivated the image of a hands-on president who gets things done. Yet voters may see a contrast between the meticulous attention devoted to resolving his own legal risks and an attitude toward citizens’ lives, safety and property — particularly housing — that seems to amount to, “If problems arise, we can fix them.” It raises doubts about the public purpose of the presidency.
Conflict within the governing coalition is emerging as well, with figures including Ryu Si-min challenging the administration over such issues as withdrawing prosecutions.
Have Lee and the Blue House detected these warning signs? Is there an internal system capable of conveying them? The answer is unclear.
Both conservatives and progressives have criticized the nominations of Kim Seung-won and Yong Hye-in, yet the Blue House responded that the candidates were selected “through the personnel system.” Does saying that somehow obscure the fact that the president holds the appointment power?
One person familiar with the ruling camp put it this way: “I don’t know how to reverse the decline in approval ratings, but I know how to stop it. Say there will be no withdrawal of prosecutions. But he won’t listen.”
Politics has something called a self-fulfilling prophecy. For now, talk of a “lame duck” may simply be a provocative phrase arriving unusually early.
But if a lame duck presidency actually emerges, it will not be anyone else who turns those words into reality. It will be President Lee and the Blue House.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
