hankyoreh

President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol speaks with members of the press at a press room set up in his transition team’s office in the Tongui neighborhood of Seoul. (Yonhap News)

Despite concerns and criticisms, President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol is continuing to push ahead with his plan to move the presidential office out of the Blue House, prompting observers to wonder why he’s being so insistent on the matter. Yoon’s experience making a successful bid for the presidency after plunging into the worlds of politics following a bull-like track record as a prosecutor, as well as his political inexperience dealing with conflict, are some of the factors those within political circles and beyond say are influencing Yoon’s behavior.

During a Sunday press conference in which he announced his plan to relocate the presidential office to Yongsan, the president-elect was asked repeatedly whether he planned to retract his decision if the public opposed it, and whether insisting on the plan despite negative public opinion wasn’t the very definition of “imperial.”

Nevertheless, Yoon maintained that he will not be backing off, saying, “If I don’t have resolve, it will be hard for [South Korea] to break away from an imperial presidential system.” Confident in its righteousness, the statement made clear Yoon’s attitude that he will continue to push ahead with his agenda.

Yoon’s head-on approach is what defines the journey through which the former prosecutor general ended up rising to the presidency. Within one month of taking office as the top prosecutor of the nation, Yoon began the probe into then-candidate for justice minister Cho Kuk, which resulted in conflict with the Moon Jae-in administration but also drew political attention his way. Later, Yoon refused to resign from his post despite then-Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae’s disciplinary action plan, thereby emerging as the most promising potential presidential contender for the opposition among voters critical of the current administration.

But Yoon’s unbending attitude backfired when he stirred controversy on his campaign trail by making favorable comments about Chun Doo-hwan, and while his wife Kim Keon-hee faced allegations of falsifying her CV. Instead of admitting fault, Yoon protested that he was being falsely accused, turning the public against him and causing his support rating to plunge.

Eom Gyeong-yeong, director of the Zeitgeist Institute, explained, “Yoon’s bull-like attitude as a former prosecutor general who faced head-on the challenges of his post, such as outside pressure, is persisting until now.” He continued, “Though he can be said to have impetus and decisiveness, things are moving forward within too short a time frame, in a manner that’s far from fostering mutual understanding with the public.”

Some say Yoon’s “head-on” style is the natural result of his 26-year career as a prosecutor. Prosecutors familiar with the president-elect told the Hankyoreh, “Though [Yoon] is not the self-conscious type, it’s true that he didn’t have a great eye for detail during investigations.” Meanwhile, those within political circles say while Yoon’s characteristic ability to remain undaunted by obstacles can be useful in standing against outside pressure and great evils, it can be a weakness in the political realm, where conflict must be mediated.

In other words, the fact that Yoon rose to the country’s top political office within eight months of his political debut without any experience with conflict mediation and cooperative governance may have unwelcome repercussions. Political commentator Park Sang-byeong said, “Yoon, a prosecutor who has dealt with criminal suspects all his life, is still continuing his ways of making decisions according to his own will while standing in the position of the powerful,” adding, “Close listening and communication are nowhere to be found, and [Yoon is] taking the approach of sticking to the plan no matter what once it’s been decided.”

A former two-term lawmaker with the People Power Party said, “Politics is a kind of process of compromise and coordination, and it’s a bit worrying that President-elect Yoon seems to regard politics as a matter of winning or producing results by filing suit and getting a decision that way.”

With his rigidness on relocating his office to Yongsan, some observers have called his insistence on “not setting foot in the Blue House” incomprehensible. They suggest that if he really is committed to ending the Blue House era, he would be better off starting work there temporarily after taking office and making careful preparations to relocate — rather than remaining at the office in Seoul's Tongui neighborhood, with its weak security and guarding.

“This very attitude of being unwilling to set foot in the Blue House for even a moment doesn’t really make logical sense,” said Eom, the institute director.

“It’s something he would be capable of doing if he were firmly committed to doing so as someone relatively free from politics,” he suggested.

“He seems to be too fixated on setting himself apart from past administrations.”

By Jang Na-rye, staff reporter

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