Lee Jae-myung’s four critical mistakes

Choi Hoon
The author is the chief editor of the JoongAng Ilbo.

Things come and go in life. The adage stands true in politics, too. Though the campaign race is still in its initial stage, the odds have sharply reversed from just a few months ago. Until last December, the wind was blowing against the governing People Power Party (PPP). Polls on the prospects of the April 10 parliamentary elections showed that more than 51 percent of the voters hoped for a victory by the majority Democratic Party (DP) to help contain the ruling power.

The DP was already popping the champagne, with some people confident of securing 200 out of the 300-seat legislature if they prevail over the capital region. In that case, the opposition can impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol. But last week’s Gallup Korea poll implied a cutthroat race — with the ratio of the voters hoping for the PPP to win a majority in the election reaching 38 percent versus 35 percent for the opposition. The other 16 percent supported non-mainstream parties.

The reversal of fortune owes largely to DP leader Lee Jae-myung’s self-indulgence. Lee, who came to the helm of a supermajority party with 180 seats, broke up the party and lost the public’s trust due to his blind greed for presidency.

Having served as a governor, lawmaker and head of the DP, Lee cannot but have eyes on presidency as the pinnacle of his political career.

Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, right, is pictured before attending a supreme council meeting at a restaurant in Incheon with floor leader Hong Ik-pyo, center, on Feb. 26, to discuss the majority party’s campaign strategy for the April 10 parliamentary elections. [KIM SEONG-RYONG]

To do so, he must first win the primary to get elected as the DP’s candidate for the presidential election two and a half years away. Lee needs undivided support from his party. But after watching a revolt when some party members endorsed the prosecution’s request to arrest him for further investigations into a handful of criminal charges against him — such as bribery and favoritism toward a developer when he was Seongnam mayor and Gyeonggi governor in the 2010s — the DP leader might have thought he couldn’t take any chances. He had to get rid of the critical and antagonistic forces in the party.

Lee, whose left arm is bent after it was pressed by a machine while working in a glove factory as a boy, recalled that spring days had been absent from his life. At the end of his memoir, he said he was only able to see the seeds of hope at the rock-bottom of desperation. His fate had always been an uphill battle as the door finally opened after he reached the top with hardly any breath left. “Life is about tasting the joy of reaching the peak at long last,” he ruminated.

Given the trajectory, fortune certainly followed during his political career. But recently, he made four misjudgments. First, he may not have imagined that the backlash from his party and the public could be so big. The overwhelming victory in a by-election in a Seoul district last October and the controversy of the first lady’s acceptance of a luxury handbag from a pastor could have fed his vanity. Lee became an unreliable leader after he urged his colleagues in the DP to vote down the prosecution’s request for his arrest warrant although he earlier pledged publicly to relinquish our lawmakers’ privilege of immunity from arrest while a legislative session is underway. Lee also reversed the promise to disallow the creation of satellite parties to win more seats in the upcoming election. His methodical removal of opponents in the party’s nominations of candidates for the legislative election epitomizes his never-ending greed for power.

History shows that opposition parties won elections only when they humbled themselves. Building a cause to win favor with voters is the only way to defeat the governing party wielding exclusive power on policies, appointments and budgeting. When the ruling party was forecast to sweep 180 seats due to an inner feud in the opposition ahead of the 2016 parliamentary elections, the DP dropped bigwigs like Reps. Lee Hae-chan and Jung Chung-rae from the nomination. It ended up becoming a majority with a single seat more than the governing party at the time.

Roh Moo-hyun was able to win the presidency thanks to the crusade against regionalism by running in the traditional conservative voting base of Busan despite his two losses. His predecessor Kim Dae-jung abhorred the reference of his “monopolistic influence” in the party while serving as the head of the liberal party. He tried to help the underdogs compete well in the primary. Those who became president had been worthy of the position.

We cannot discover the cause, principle, conviction and boldness that make up the president’s worth in Lee. Without any of the virtues, he is just a heedless politician. Filling candidates entirely with his loyalists only makes him a bad politician. His greed won him the nomination to run in a district in Incheon that assures a sure win for the DP. What is the use of a term in the legislature he may not finish if he runs in the presidential election?

Because he cannot relinquish anything and has nothing to share, there is no place to build anew. He might be unwilling to let go of anything in his hands out of the habit of a self-made man. Former president Kim Dae-jung, who had said politicians should learn to give up like Roh Moo-hyun, would be shaking his head at the sight of Lee.

Lee’s second miscalculation is the relative strength of PPP interim leader Han Dong-hoon, the former justice minister and protégé of President Yoon when both of them served as prosecutors. Han has kept his leadership without a major controversy. His comments and campaigns have been sitting well with centrists, too. Although there is some criticism about him playing it too safe, Han is ahead of the scorecard so far with his approval rate at 52 percent versus disapproval at 42 percent, whereas Lee’s disapproval rate is at 61 percent and approval at 36 percent.

The third backfire is the relative muteness about President Yoon in the campaign race. Until last month, Lee Jae-myung and the DP stood stronger in the election prospects thanks to the president’s approval rating sinking under 30 percent. But the race now centers on DP leader Lee and his PPP counterpart Han. Moreover, Yoon’s approval rating recently jumped to 39 percent — the highest in 8 months — according to the Gallup Korea poll. 21 percent of the voters appreciated the president’s toughness against the strike by doctors in protest of the government’s plan to increase the enrollment quota for medical schools. The president’s approval rating at 40 percent can give the PPP a strong traction in winning the parliamentary election. At this rate, the April election could turn into a day of reckoning for Lee rather than Yoon.

The final headwind comes from new nonmainstream parties. The new parties have a stronger chance thanks to public apathy toward the mainstream parties. The DP must worry about a loss of liberal votes to former PPP head Lee Jun-seok, former DP leader Lee Nak-yon, and now Cho Kuk, an iconic figure from the Moon Jae-in administration.

Undecided and centrist voters make up 19 to 29 percent of all voters. Only God knows the outcome of the election. There is still room for twists. It depends on who surrenders vested power more and shows more willingness for new politics. April 10 will be the judgement day on arrogance and selfishness.