Yoon Seok-yeol: From Courageous Leader to Disappointing President – A Look at His Rise and Fall

In February 2022, People Power Party presidential candidate Yoon Seok-yeol is holding a ‘one team’ campaign holding hands with Lee Jun-seok (left) and People’s Party leader Ahn Cheol-soo (right) in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul. / Yonhap News

President Yoon Seok-yeol is a courageous leader. He has a style that stands out for his bravery of competing head-on without calculating or giving back and forth. His competitive nature was largely responsible for his sudden rise to national stardom and his rise to power after becoming the Prosecutor General. Even when a crisis came, he would not compromise or take a detour, but would break through in a straight line and turn the situation around.

He was a man who fought and fought big battles. The opponents he fought against were all ‘strong guys’ like the president and powerful figures of the time. He went against the wishes of the Park Geun-hye administration and investigated the ‘National Intelligence Service Comment Case’, moving from one local position to another for three years. Although he was in a difficult position to predict the future, he appeared at the National Assembly inspection where high-ranking prosecutors were lined up and captured the hearts of the people with one word, “I am not loyal to people.” Even in the face of a turbulent regime, there was no cowardice.

He did not avoid direct confrontation with the Moon Jae-in administration. He investigated Justice Minister Cho Kuk, who was the most influential person, and revealed to the world the hypocritical true face of Gangnam leftists. They did not turn a blind eye to the Blue House’s mobilizing intervention in the Ulsan election and the manipulation of the economic feasibility of nuclear phase-out, which was enforced with a single word from the President. Although it seemed like a reckless fight like hitting a rock with an egg, he withstood all kinds of oppression and pushed through the ‘living power’ rhetoric to the end.

The reason he won the confrontation with the Moon administration was because he followed the winning path. He had power because he fought with the universal values ​​of fairness and common sense as his weapons. Because he stood on the side of the rule of law, not the regime, and justice rather than the camp, he was able to make the people his allies. Finally, he became the focal point of the regime change force and ascended to the stage of the presidential election. As a novice in politics, he made many mistakes and lost countless small battles, but his natural competitive nature shone once again in the big election. The scene where he hugged Lee Jun-seok, joined hands with Ahn Cheol-soo, and launched a grand anti-Moon coalition was the highlight of the last presidential election. And a change of government was achieved.

Even after becoming president, he did not hesitate to take on big wins. As soon as he took office, he restored the alliance with the United States like lightning and led the normalization of Korea-Japan relations despite a barrage of criticism. He was a huge diplomatic winner who brought the country’s course, which had deviated towards pro-China and pro-North Korea, back on track. Meanwhile, the Fukushima contaminated water issue that arose was a bombshell issue that could be caught up in a pro-Japanese frame, but he did not run away. The Democratic Party, which had been spreading all kinds of ghost stories, now doesn’t even mention the ‘O’ character for contaminated water, so it was proven that he was right.

He also engaged in a major bloodbath with the labor establishment, which previous administrations had fearfully avoided. He responded with zero tolerance to the illegality and violence of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, which reigns as the strongest fighting group in Korea, and also made public the accounting ledgers that the noble union had kept hidden for decades. We declared a ‘war on gun violence’ and arrested thousands of construction criminals, eliminating the practice of extortion and corruption at construction sites. It is still too early to judge the merits and demerits of the Yoon administration, but I think these achievements should definitely be evaluated.

But at some point, the scale of the game became smaller. They began to value partisan interests over values ​​and political engineering over representation. The opportunity for many people to realize this may have been the People Power Party National Convention last March. In order to install his own person as party leader, he brought down Na Kyung-won and sent an unusual message to Ahn Cheol-soo, calling him “an obstructionist and an enemy.” The president could be involved in the ruling party’s personnel decisions, but the method was very rough. It was neither fair nor common sense. The image of the president fighting an internal enemy did not fit with the image of a warrior waging a great fight against a great evil. As prosecutors’ biased appointments and lack of communication with the public piled up, the color of vested interests was added to President Yoon.

In the controversy over First Lady Kim Kun-hee, he appears even smaller. It gives the impression that President Yoon, who was so frosty, has lost his principles and is drifting when faced with this issue. There is no doubt that Mrs. Kim was the victim of a trap operation, but it is also true that many people have doubts about Ms. Kim’s inappropriate behavior. The President’s Office cannot explain why she received expensive luxury goods that were almost like a bribe. Her luxury bag was returned to the national treasury, and only an explanation that does not seem like an explanation, such as “If you return it, it would actually be embezzlement of the national treasury,” is being offered. President Yoon seems to be concentrating on protecting Mrs. Kim, hiding behind this kind of pointless logic.

President Yoon also skipped the New Year’s conference this year. He said he would instead replace it with a public broadcast talk show. If he is unable to stand at an interview without a script because he feels burdened by questions related to First Lady Kim, he is far from the ‘Yoon Seok-yeol-like’ personality who never avoids no matter how much he is pushed into a corner. This is even more true if it is true that they tried to resign emergency committee chairman Han Dong-hoon due to the issue of Ms. Kim.

For those who remember Yoon Seok-yeol from the past, the current situation is shocking. Where has Yoon Seok-yeol, the great fighter who stood on the side of universal values ​​and overcome crises straight ahead, gone? Where is ‘the Yoon Seok-yeol’ we knew?

2024-01-26 18:20:00
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