Kim Dong-yeon: "Democracy in the Republic of Korea is collapsing under legally elected power"

Governor Kim Dong-yeon of Gyeonggi Province posted the following text and photo on his SNS on the 23rd.

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Kim Dong-yeon, Governor of Gyeonggi Province, lamented that democracy is currently collapsing in South Korea under legally elected power.

On the 23rd, Kim posted on his social network service (SNS) a message titled "Democracy is collapsing," stating, "In the past, democracy was destroyed by violence such as coups, but now it is said to be collapsing due to legally elected power," citing the example of the erosion of democracy during the presidency of Donald Trump in the United States.

He added, "Two political scientists from Harvard University present two answers in their book 'How Democracies Die,'" pointing out, "One is the lack of 'mutual tolerance' among political groups. They ignore and suppress voices of groups with different opinions to eliminate them. This is exactly the current situation in our (South Korea)."

Furthermore, he said, "What I pay more attention to is the second reason, which is the 'unrestrained exercise of power,' that is, the ruthless abuse of power under the pretext of law enforcement," and argued, "(As Harvard professors say) Is this a story from a foreign country across the Pacific (the United States)? Selective justice or judicial processing is currently destroying our democracy."

In particular, he prefaced by saying, "All of our political circles must reflect on the disappearance of mutual tolerance," then warned, "However, before that, those in power need maturity to know how to restrain the exercise of power and must not wield power recklessly."

Kim advised, "That is the (only) way to protect the democracy that is currently collapsing."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.