Still trying to read his lips? Think again.

Yun Suk-man
The author is an editorial writer of the JoongAng Ilbo.

President Yoon Suk Yeol — then head of the Yeoju District Prosecutors’ Office — came under public limelight 10 years ago. After being summoned to the National Assembly’s regular audit of the Seoul High Prosecutors’ Office as a witness on Oct. 21, 2013, he testified on the pressure from the higher hierarchy on the prosecution’s investigation of the allegation of the National Intelligence Service’s meddling in the 2012 presidential election through suspicious online posting to sway public opinion in favor of then-presidential candidate Park Geun-hye against her liberal rival Moon Jae-in. In the legislative audit, a conservative party lawmaker grilled Yoon, asking if he was loyal to a certain person, referring to then-prosecutor general Chae Dong-wook. At that time, Yoon stoically answered, “I am not loyal to any individual.” He rose to stardom through the upright comment.

Yoon has stayed true to his conviction. He even abandoned his prosecutor-general title while fighting against the sitting power under President Moon Jae-in. The bold defiance against the power and bias of the time made him the president. The political rookie as a presidential candidate only feared the people. “The people are the true owners of this country,” he said. “Statesmen and politicians are servants to the people.”

But lawmakers of his People Power Party (PPP) seem to act the opposite: they are only loyal to a person — or Yoon. They are bent on scoring points with the president so that they can get nominated to run in the next parliamentary election on April 10. The PPP even changed its internal election rule by restricting the vote to elect their leader to party members to drift away from the centrists.

The PPP could win the last presidential election in March 2022 by winning over moderates and young voters, but it entirely lost them, as clearly seen in its crushing defeat in the latest by-election for the head of the Gangseo District in Seoul.

The same fate will befall the PPP if it does not reinvent itself. Fatigued by the hypocritical justice chants of activist-turned-lawmakers of the Democratic Party and its politics based on die-hard fandom, the voters have turned cold toward the PPP lawmakers with their eyes only on the president.

Only when the PPP turns its focus away from the president and to the people and their wellbeing can the conservative party win back voters.

People Power Party (PPP) leader Kim Gi-hyeon, right, speaks before the supreme committee of his party at the National Assembly on Oct. 16, five days after the governing party’s crushing defeat in the by-election for the head of Gangseo district in Seoul. To his left is PPP floor leader Yun Jae-ok. [KIM SEONG-RYONG]

Democracy — a political system adopted by most of the advanced countries — bestows power on the people. However, the system is vulnerable to the abuse of majority power. There are also populists who would spin the election outcome as the wishes of the entire people. Like the death of Socrates from drinking poison, a misjudgment by a majority pushes a society into a crisis. Therefore, liberal democracy must respect the diverse opinions and voices of the minority.

Since his term as prosecutor general, Yoon repeatedly emphasized the rule of law. After being reinstated as the top prosecutor upon a court decision in 2020, he often used the words “common sense” instead of “the Constitution” and “fairness.” In his 1776 book “Common Sense,” Thomas Paine argued that Americans could change the course of history by creating a government system that could give them freedom and power. Yoon, as prosecutor general, meant the same with his emphasis on the rule of law.

The president’s philosophy not to serve a person or that a prosecutor general is not a subordinate of a justice minister is based on respect to the separation of powers for check and balance. Lawmakers of the PPP must not devote themselves entirely to the president, but instead, they must represent diverse voices of the people and work to balance power between the government and legislature.

But only a few act that way. If there were members who truly understood the president’s mind and tried to mimic his defiance as a prosecutor, the PPP would not be sneered at as a Yeouido outlet of the Yongsan presidential office. If the party loses big in next year’s parliamentary election — and if the president’s leadership is shaken as a result — the first to abandon the ship will be those who blindly followed the president. The governing power can have hope for the future only when many in the party uphold the president’s values on liberal democracy and the rule of law and act them out.