hankyoreh

The Blue House can be seen in this undated file photo. (Hankyoreh file photo)

A scheduled first meeting between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol was abruptly canceled on Wednesday morning four hours before it was supposed to take place.

It was the first-ever case of a meeting between the South Korean president and president-elect being canceled the same day that it was scheduled to take place. The decision appeared to have to do with their failure to bridge differences over appointment powers for public institutions and Yoon’s formal proposal to discuss pardoning imprisoned former President Lee Myung-bak.

The tension between the two sides appears likely to continue for some time amid the head-on clash between the outgoing and incoming administrations during the transition period.

Kim Eun-hye, spokesperson for the president-elect, said during a briefing Wednesday morning that Yoon and Moon had decided to reschedule the day’s meeting “because working-level deliberations had not been finalized.”

“We intend to continue deliberations at the working level,” Yoon’s spokesperson added.

Blue House spokesperson Park Kyung-mee confirmed the meeting’s cancellation in a press release containing the same information and made available at the same time.

The two spokespeople said they had coordinated the text and timing of their messages ahead of time. They didn’t provide a concrete reason for the meeting’s cancellation.

Originally, Moon and Yoon had planned to hold a face-to-face over lunch at the Blue House on Wednesday without anyone else present.

Working-level deliberations between Lee Cheol-hui, Moon’s senior secretary for political affairs, and Chang Je-won, Yoon’s chief of staff, had continued through Tuesday. The deliberations appeared to run into a snag that day when Yoon’s camp floated the idea of simultaneously pardoning conservative former President Lee Myung-bak and liberal former South Gyeongsang Province Gov. Kim Kyoung-soo.

“Moon can’t just leave Kim Kyoung-soo out in the cold. He’s got to save him. I think that Moon will pardon both Kim and Lee Myung-bak. I’d say there’s a 100% chance of that,” said Kweon Seong-dong, a lawmaker with the People Power Party and a close associate of Yoon, during a radio spot.

After Yoon’s allies openly pressured Moon to pardon the former president and tried to sweeten the pot by suggesting that Kim Kyoung-soo could be pardoned along with him, Blue House officials heatedly objected to “haggling over pardons.”

In addition, the Blue House appears to have concluded that Yoon is trying to meddle in Moon’s power of appointment. Yoon’s camp has been basically pressuring Prosecutor General Kim Oh-soo to step down, although more than a year is left in his term. It has also been demanding that the Moon administration consult with Yoon before appointing anyone to government office to prevent political “holdouts” carrying over into the Yoon administration.

The Yoon camp had asked for preliminary consultation about the Moon administration’s appointments to government agencies, explained Kim Eun-hye, Yoon’s spokesperson. “We have requested that they deliberate with us about appointments that cannot be delayed and to let the next administration handle appointments that can be delayed,” she said.

The Blue House responded by saying it had no intention of honoring the request for deliberations, triggering the clash. “Moon Jae-in’s term is not over until May 9, and it would be strange for him not to exercise the power of appointment bestowed upon him during his term in office,” a Blue House official said.

“We thought we would need more time for the working-level deliberations, which naturally led to an agreement [to postpone the meeting],” Chang Je-won, Yoon’s chief of staff, told reporters in front of the office of the presidential transition committee in Seoul’s Tongui neighborhood.

“The point of this meeting was to offer congratulations and give friendly advice. The two agreed to a one-on-one meeting because Moon wanted the president-elect to candidly say whatever was on his mind. But then all of a sudden appointments, pardons and supplementary budgets were put on the agenda,” a key figure in the ruling party told the Hankyoreh.

“My understanding is that the meeting was canceled because that kind of agenda would lead to conclusions that could be awkward for both sides.”

“They may need more time to coordinate the agenda for the meeting, but the fact is that it doesn’t look good to cancel the meeting just four hours in advance,” said a senior member of the transitional committee.

Some political pundits think the two sides are jockeying to seize the initiative. Yoon’s camp publicly requested that a pardon for Lee Myung-bak be placed on the meeting’s agenda, a request calibrated to appeal to his base. The Blue House may have thought Yoon had gone too far and countered by abruptly canceling the meeting, those pundits say.

Previously, the two sides had scuffled about Yoon’s announcement that he would shut down the office of the senior secretary for civil affairs. The president-elect said he would do as much during his first meeting with the transition committee on March 14.

“I’m going to sweep away the last traces of the government carrying out secret and illicit investigations into Korean citizens,” Yoon said at the time.

“Behavior that has not occurred under the current administration should not be given as grounds for shutting down the office of the senior secretary for civil affairs,” a Blue House official commented.

Regarding when Moon and Yoon’s meeting would be held, the two sides would only say they “need more time.” That makes it likely that the chill between Moon and Yoon will continue for some time — inevitably causing some hitches in the transition to the next administration.

The first test is likely to be the appointment of a successor for Lee Ju-yeol, governor of the Bank of Korea, whose term is set to end on March 31. The Blue House only offered the generic comment that it’s “making the necessary working-level preparations to fill the position.”

Some also think a spat between the outgoing and incoming administrations with two months left before Moon leaves office could inflame divisions between the two political camps that became evident in the presidential election and sap Yoon’s governing momentum from the start of his presidency.

By Kim Mi-na, staff reporter; Lee Wan, staff reporter

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