A first step to regularize co-governance

President Yoon Suk Yeol and Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung agreed to have a face-to-face meeting as early as this week in a phone conversation last Friday. The two leaders haven’t met in the past two years since Yoon’s election as president. We hope their agreement, though belated, will help break the ongoing political deadlock.

President Yoon most likely decided to meet with the opposition leader to help turn the situation around after the governing People Power Party (PPP)’s crushing defeat in the April 10 parliamentary elections and the president’s plunging approval rating. The DP leader also needs to dilute his image as an opposition leader bent on protecting himself from his own judicial risks and unilateral pushing for a number of populist bills. Both sides certainly agreed to the meeting to accommodate voters’ increasing demand for cooperation between the government and the opposition.

The two leaders must declare that the meeting will signal a starting point for co-governance over the next four years, given the PPP’s minority status in the National Assembly. The two must achieve tangible results, starting with a successful resolution of the medical crisis from trainee doctors’ walkout to protest the government’s unilateral increase in the medical school enrollment quota. The collective resignations submitted by medical professors will take effect from Thursday, while medical students who rejected their classes will be suspended from the end of April.

If universities cannot fix next year’s admissions guidelines for their medical schools, our college entrance system will collapse. The opposition leader must help the government end the ongoing medical vacuum as quickly as possible.

The president also needs to reflect the opposition leader’s opinion about nominating a candidate for the next prime minister after the incumbent prime minister rendered his resignation after the election defeat. It could be better for the legislature to hold a confirmation hearing for the nominee after the next National Assembly opens on May 30 and endorse the candidate in a bipartisan manner.

The two leaders must deal with many thorny issues — such as the controversy over the suspicious death of a Marine on a rescue mission, the first lady’s reception of a luxury handbag from a suspicious pastor, and the DP-proposed 250,000-won ($181) relief for each citizen to help ease their economic plight. Both leaders’ hardline approach leads nowhere. The president must convince the opposition leader of the reasons why he cannot accept all his demands, while Lee must refrain from making excessive demand. We hope both sides find a breakthrough in addressing the political impasse.