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Remove the first lady risk before it’s too late

Published: 14 Oct. 2024, 20:05

People Power Party (PPP) leader Han Dong-hoon has finally started to criticize first lady Kim Keon Hee after maintaining an uncomfortable relationship with the presidential office for a while. A governing party head’s public attack on a first lady is the first of its kind in Korea. But surprisingly, public opinion is on Han’s side. In a meeting with the press on Monday, the PPP leader said, “The fact that many people believe her personal aides exist in the presidential office itself doesn’t help the government.” He added, “Such unofficial lines of the first lady are not needed [for the country].”

On Saturday, Han called for a personnel reshuffle in the presidential office to dispel deepening public concerns about the first lady. Earlier, he demanded the first lady restrain herself from engaging in official activities. The following day, Han urged the prosecution to present convincing results of its investigations into the first lady’s alleged stock manipulation in the past.

The PPP leader made such remarks quite belatedly. There have been rampant rumors that the first lady’s personal aides wielded massive influence in national affairs. Even a list of their names was floating in political circles. The existence of her confidantes in the presidential office itself was a ticking bomb. Past first ladies also exercised their power, but not like her.

When three senior officials in the presidential office, including the director of the National Security Office, were replaced for suspicious reasons in March, political pundits attributed it to her influence. Even when the names of a new prime minister and a new chief of staff to the president appeared in the media shortly after the PPP’s crushing defeat in the April parliamentary elections, the replacements were most likely leaked by her close aides. After the sitting chief of staff immediately denied it, one of her aides instantly refuted it. It would be impossible to expect strong work ethics and discipline to be established in the presidential office under such circumstances.

Han thinks that the presidential office’s lax reaction to the first lady’s suspicious acceptance of a luxury handbag from a mysterious pastor also stemmed from her confidantes’ pressure. Of course, whether Han attacked the first lady out of pure motives remains to be seen. Nevertheless, we can hardly deny that Han hit the nail on the head.

The first lady has become the Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s biggest risk. In Monday’s Realmeter poll, the president’s approval rating fell to 25.8 percent, the lowest in its survey. With more than half of his term left, the president cannot smoothly govern the country if his approval ratings are stuck in the 20 percent range. We hope President Yoon will not forget that his government will certainly fail unless he addresses that risk.