hankyoreh

On Oct. 29, President Yoon Suk-yeol prays during a memorial sermon on the one-year anniversary of the deadly crowd crush in Itaewon held at the Youngahm Presbyterian Church in Seoul. Yoon was joined by People Power Party leader Kim Gi-hyeon, PPP floor leader Yoon Jae-ok, Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho, and Interior Minister Lee Sang-min. (courtesy of the presidential office)

After the ruling People Power Party (PPP) took a shellacking in the by-election for Gangseo District Office chief in Seoul, there were hopes that we’d see some changes from President Yoon Suk-yeol.

Even various conservative newspapers called on him to “at least pretend to change” — and some of the remarks he made seemed to hint that he had.

Six days after the election, he said on Oct. 17 that he and his Cabinet would “reflect” on the defeat. This amounted to the first reference to “reflection” since he took office, even if what they were to reflect on was “the extent to which the policy suggestions of the national unity committee were put into practice.”

Around the same time, Yoon also made comments calling for “stronger communication with the public, on the ground, and between the party and administration” and for “stopping with the ideological debates and focusing exclusively on livelihoods.”

To be sure, there were still clear signs of being out of touch with reality, but at least it was different from remarks about ideology being the “most important thing.”

Once again, the more cynical predictions have been borne out. Since his return from a tour of Middle Eastern countries, Yoon’s actions have been a far cry from what people were hoping for.

Maybe he was still on a high from state guest treatment. In any case, whatever brief awakening he might have undergone was nowhere to be seen.

His first stop upon his return home last Thursday was a ceremony commemorating Park Chung-hee — making him the first sitting South Korean president ever to attend.

During the event, he responded to ex-President Park Geun-hye’s outstretched hand by taking it in both hands and saying, “I would like to share my deepest condolences to you as a daughter and former president and to your family members for the grief you experienced as his children.”

Yoon also announced that he would not be attending a ceremony commemorating the one-year anniversary of the deadly Halloween crowd crush in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood, despite the family members of the victims extending a personal invitation.

So he extended his profound condolences on the death of a dictator 44 years ago, while refusing to attend an event to console family members and honor 159 victims whose deaths plunged the whole nation into grief a year ago.

The presidential office explained that he could not go because this was a “political gathering” organized not only by the family members but also four of the opposition parties.

In response, the family members said that while they had previously co-organized the event with the four parties due to issues concerning the site, the parties had stepped aside after a recent agreement with the city of Seoul on the use of Seoul Plaza. They once again appealed to Yoon to attend, but he did not alter his plans to sit the event out.

The presidential office might have known that the organizing situation had changed had it made a simple phone call to the family members’ association to ask about it. It seems that neither the president nor his advisors had any intention of “communication with the public” or “communication on the ground.”

Indeed, it’s pointless to even talk about communication when it comes to the working level. When an event is meant to soothe the public’s unfathomable suffering, what does it matter who organized it?

Former PPP leader Lee Jun-seok said, “Regardless of who organized it, an event becomes a ‘presidential event’ when the president attends.”

The place that Yoon chose to go instead of that commemoration ceremony on Sunday was a memorial service at Youngahm Presbyterian Church in Seoul. It was there that he shared a message of “profound condolences to the bereaved family members.”

Why wouldn’t he say such a thing directly to the family members at an event where they actually were in attendance? Perhaps it is because he was loath to apologize and acknowledge the government’s responsibility to their faces, or he was not eager to hear any more bitter messages from people “on the ground.”

What these actions show is that Yoon has not changed a bit. It is now apparent that his talk about “reflection” was not directed at the public, but at Kim Han-gil, the chairperson of the national unity committee. “Communication” is something reserved for his supporters and people on his side.

After sharing his condolences with the daughter of a dictator who enjoys broad-based support among older voters in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province, he headed back to the province the following day. Meanwhile, he has taken no action to halt the removal of a bust of Hong Beom-do from the Korea Military Academy.

Conservative media continues to run interference for Yoon, saying that he’s rallying conservatives first before moving on to bringing in moderates. But there’s little chance of that playing out as they say. The much more likely scenario is that once the president has rallied conservatives a bit more, he’ll say his job is done and continue on down that same track.

When you look at his behavior up to this point, one can’t help but wonder at times if a ruling camp victory in the general election is all that important in Yoon’s eyes. Some even say that since he’s managed to bumble his way into the presidency, he’s achieved all his goals in politics. At the same time, his vision for governing lacks substance and any ambition he does have to use the National Assembly to pass legislation to achieve his vision appears weak at best.

Even the major conservative papers are trying to slip Yoon a cheat sheet by saying he’ll become a “vegetative president” if the ruling party loses the general election, but this is precisely why Yoon himself isn’t so much as pretending that he’ll change.

It’s normal for a desperate ruling party to stand up and raise its voice when a president who wants for nothing won’t change. But considering that the ruling party has become a lapdog of the president, I don't have high hopes.

After making a big show about how he would “speak bluntly even with the president,” the head of the ruling party’s new innovation committee only ended up attending the memorial for the Itaewon crowd crush in a personal capacity. All that awaits such a president and party is a rebuke from the public so scalding as to make the by-election seem like a slap on the wrist.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]