Address the first lady issue quickly

The conflict between President Yoon Suk Yeol and the People Power Party (PPP)’s interim leader Han Dong-hoon seems to have subsided after the two visited an inferno site in South Chungcheong together and returned to Seoul on the same presidential train. PPP leader Han said he deeply respects and trusts the president. The comment most likely came from the need to address the friction with just about 70 days left before the parliamentary elections on April 10. If the conflict continues, both the president and the PPP would be headed toward a bigger crisis.

The tension originates from the risks related to the first lady — for instance, from her reception of a luxury handbag from a pastor four months after her husband was elected president. But both insiders and outsiders worry about the possibility of the opposition “attacking the first lady like wild cats.” The presidential office and the interim leader also disagree on the future of Kim Kyung-ryul, an emergency committee member, who provoked the presidential couple by comparing the first lady to Marie Antoinette. If Yoon’s chief of staff really called for Han’s resignation, it constitutes an excessive intervention by the presidential office in party affairs.

As the controversy over the first lady’s reception of a Dior bag basically originated with a liberal media outlet’s secret taping of the moment after framing her, the presidential office can accuse it of having impure motives from the start. But the expensive bag is certainly not a present from other heads of state, either. Polls show more than 60 percent want the president to make clear his position on the issue.

President Yoon must make an appropriate response given the volatility of the issue. If he finds it difficult to apologize for the bag, he must tell the people what really happened. In addition, the president must promise to take extra steps — including the establishment of an office or an inspector to keep watch over the presidential family — to prevent such cases in the future. Otherwise, the president cannot keep hostile public sentiment at bay.

The emergency committee member’s description of the first lady as Marie Antoinette certainly went overboard. Now that he apologized for his coarse rhetoric, the PPP needs to determine his political future while the presidential office focuses on revitalizing the economy to help the struggling people.

With less than three months left before the legislative election, the president and the interim leader must find effective ways to address the first lady issue and the vertical relations between the presidential office and the party. If not, the PPP could lose the election and Yoon would be headed to an early lame-duck presidency.