hankyoreh

President Yoon Suk-yeol and first lady Kim Keon-hee take part in an event commemorating New Year's at the guest house of the Blue House on Jan. 2. (presidential office pool photo)

South Korea’s ruling and opposition parties continued their streak of intense confrontation from the very start of the new year.

The main opposition Democratic Party abstained from the presidential office’s New Year’s gathering on Monday, to which various political and other figures were invited. President Yoon Suk-yeol himself also openly noted his dissatisfaction with the party in an interview with the media.

Given the way things are going, the prospects for cooperation between the ruling and opposition parties in the months to come seem increasingly dim.

On Monday morning, Yoon invited 200 key public officials from the legislative, judicial, and administrative sectors to the Blue House reception hall for a New Year’s gathering and exchanged good wishes with them.

About 90 political figures, including National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo and members of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) attended the gathering. Notably, however, not a single Democratic lawmaker was in attendance. Lee Jeong-mi, the leader of the minor Justice Party, was the only opposition figure who attended.

The Democratic Party had notified the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, which was overseeing the event, on Dec. 23 that it would not be attending the event, saying they had a prior schedule set up for that day. In reality, however, the party’s displeasure with the presidential office is growing.

On the surface, it seems that the main opposition party took issue with the presidential office’s method of invitation for the event.

Prior to the gathering, there was reportedly no direct contact from the presidential office to the party. The only communication the Democrats received about the event came in emails from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and invitations delivered by working-level staff.

“If they really wanted to meet or talk, would the presidential office have done things this way?” an official from the opposition’s leadership asked.

After holding a meeting of the party’s supreme council in Busan on Monday, leader Lee Jae-myung was asked by reporters about the hubbub in regard to the presidential office’s New Year’s gathering.

“It’s the first time I’m hearing about this,” Lee said. “You’re saying they asked me to go to the New Year’s gathering to greet people?”

More fundamentally, it seems the mood was not right to suddenly attend the event and share happy wishes with each other in the midst of the high tensions dominating the relationship between the ruling and opposition blocs.

In fact, the Democratic Party has been ramping up its criticism of the Yoon government across the country ahead of Lee Jae-myung’s scheduled appearance at the prosecution, which is expected to take place before mid-January.

At the meeting in Busan on Monday, Lee also harshly criticized the Yoon administration, saying, “The disappearance of state responsibility, the absence of politics, and violent rule have led to anarchy.”

Meanwhile, Yoon also didn’t hide his antipathy toward the Democrats in an interview with the Chosun Ilbo newspaper published on Monday.

“When I gave a speech at the National Assembly [on Oct. 25, 2022], they did not even show up,” Yoon said.

“Even though we said we would increase the budget for the opposition to one they wanted if they accepted a budget plan like the police, they made an issue of it until the end,” the president added.

“First of all, we will aim for the ruling party to have frequent talks with the opposition parties and resolve issues in the National Assembly through communication with the National Assembly speaker,” Yoon added, implying that he had no intention of directly communicating with the party.

Also on Monday, Joo Ho-young, PPP floor leader, said in a radio interview with the Buddhist Broadcasting System that he would “arrange for the president to have talks with the opposition party.”

On Dec. 26-27, the Hankyoreh commissioned an opinion survey of 1,015 adult men and women nationwide. According to the results of the survey, 38.4% of respondents see the president as responsible for the current confrontation and division between political parties while 34.7% said the Democratic Party was responsible.

By Um Ji-won, staff reporter; Bae Ji-hyun, staff reporter; Joh Yun-yeong, staff reporter

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