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A government that recedes the closer one gets to it

Published: 18 Nov. 2025, 00:01

Kang Won-taek

The author is a professor of political science and international relations at Seoul National University.

“One thing is clear. Every time I try to get closer, he pulls farther away.”

A friend said this at a recent dinner gathering. The person he felt drifting away was President Lee Jae Myung. This friend normally avoids political talk and did not even vote in the last presidential election. But he said he had hoped to give the Lee administration a chance after watching the government successfully host the APEC summit in Gyeongju and work through difficult tariff negotiations with the United States. Just as he was warming to the administration, the government then abruptly dropped its appeal in the Daejang-dong case and the Democratic Party began pressuring prosecutors. These controversies had little to do with people’s daily lives and offered no persuasive political justification, yet they pushed away voters who were prepared to reconsider their stance.

New President Lee Jae-myung salutes the flag at his inauguration ceremony at the National Assembly in western Seoul on June 4. [LIM HYUNG-DONG]

Gallup Korea found that President Lee’s approval rating, which had climbed to 63 percent after APEC, fell to 59 percent soon after. If many others feel as that friend does, his ratings could slide further in the coming months.

Support for President Lee and for the Democratic Party has never been as solid as it sometimes appears. Even in a presidential race where the opposition candidate faced the serious burden of a martial law scandal, Lee failed to secure more than 50 percent of the vote. Half the electorate withheld support or voted against him despite the gravity of the situation. The same applies to the Democratic Party’s position in the National Assembly. The party often touts its overwhelming majority and invokes the authority of majority rule, yet its seat share far exceeds its vote share.

In the 2022 general election, the Democratic Party won 50.5 percent of the constituency vote but secured 63.4 percent of the seats. The People Power Party, with 45.1 percent of the vote, won 35.4 percent of the seats. A vote-share gap of 5.4 percentage points ballooned into a 28-point difference in seats. In Seoul the gap was even starker: the two parties differed by 5.9 percentage points in votes, but the seat distribution was 37 to 11, a 54.2-point difference.

President Lee Jae Myung poses for a group photo with leaders attending the 2025 APEC summit at the HICO convention center in Gyeongju on Nov. 1. Front row, from left: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Chilean President Gabriel Boric, Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Lee, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Back row, from left: Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, Papua New Guinea Deputy Prime Minister John Rosso, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk, Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, Vietnamese President Luong Cuong, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Peruvian Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism Teresa Mera, Mexican Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard and Lin Hsin-yi, senior adviser to Taiwan’s president. [YONHAP]

What Koreans expressed through those elections was not a desire to hand overwhelming power to one side, but a call for balanced politics. Yet because Korea uses a first-past-the-post system, even small vote differences produce large seat discrepancies. The Democratic Party’s current dominance is therefore a “manufactured majority” created by disproportionality, rather than a groundswell of popular support.

Despite this reality, the party and the president often behave as if they were granted absolute authority. This may stem from focusing too narrowly on a weakened opposition still trapped in the shadow of former president Yoon Suk Yeol. Even when the ruling party faces setbacks, such as with its real estate policies or the withdrawal of the Daejang-dong appeal, the opposition has not gained momentum. The ruling camp may find the opposition unimpressive for now, but no party remains disorganized forever. If the opposition fails to recover, voters may eventually rally behind an alternative force. Public discontent always finds an outlet.

The Lee administration will soon mark its sixth month in office. Yet the president and the ruling party remain consumed with correcting the past, particularly the handling of the martial law scandal. From this point on, however, public evaluation will focus squarely on the Lee government itself. When Lee took office, citizens hoped most for national reconciliation and a restoration of democratic norms. In his inaugural speech, he spoke of “K-democracy” and pledged to end divisive politics. But in the past six months, neither polarization nor political hostility has meaningfully eased. With the ruling party wielding its large majority unilaterally, the political process has eroded and factional conflict has intensified.

President Lee speaks proudly of reviving Korean democracy, yet the pressure placed upon the judiciary challenges the core democratic principle of checks and balances. There is also little sign of mutual toleration: the willingness to see one’s rivals as legitimate competitors in a democratic arena. Democracy is not restored simply by a change in governing party. It is restored when democratic values and institutions operate properly.

Acting Prosecutor General Noh Man-seok, who recently expressed his intent to resign after becoming embroiled in the recent prosecutorial decision not to appeal in the Daejang-dong land development case, leaves the office at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in Seocho District in southern Seoul on Nov. 12. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

The sea that carries a ship is never entirely calm. A large vessel may seem steady, but without caution and humility it cannot withstand sudden waves. If next year’s local elections remain unpredictable even with the opposition in disarray, it may signal deeper undercurrents already forming beneath the surface. The first six months of any administration are often marked by overconfidence and inexperience, but this is precisely why the Lee government must reflect on its approach.

It is time to reembrace humility and a politics of coexistence. The administration should avoid acting in ways that push away even those who are trying to come closer.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.