[Inside Chodong] The First Anniversary That Was Anything but Quiet

Civil Servants Recall 'Blacklist' Over Personnel Shake-Up Warning
If President Yoon's 'Closed-Off Image' Spreads, Public Officials May Turn Away

An official from a government ministry expressed unease over President Yoon Seok-yeol's remark on his first anniversary in office that there is "no need to forcibly persuade and bring along" certain individuals, instructing 'bold personnel measures.' This went beyond enforcing public service discipline against bureaucrats who do not align with the national agenda, recalling the so-called 'Ministry of Environment Blacklist Incident' during the Moon Jae-in administration, where heads of public institutions appointed by the previous government were pressured to resign. From 2017 to 2019, former Environment Minister Kim Eun-kyung and others forced resignations from executives appointed during the Park Geun-hye administration. The court at the time pointed out that this showed a mistaken belief of 'doing their best to correct the previous government's wrong policies,' making severe punishment inevitable.

Considering the country's shift from a nuclear phase-out policy back to a nuclear-centered approach, along with a series of reforms denying past policies in pensions, labor, and education, it is not surprising that the situations appear overlapping. Asking whether the cases are different is difficult when the frame pushing the previous government as 'wrong' is quite similar.

President Yoon's criticism of the previous administration continues. Although there have been many instances where President Yoon mentioned and criticized the previous government since his inauguration, the ongoing three-day barrage around his first anniversary rendered the idea of a 'quiet first anniversary' hollow.

President Yoon attributed both the controversial jeonse fraud and investment fraud to the previous government's anti-market and abnormal policies. Regarding former President Moon Jae-in's self-praise of the 'K-quarantine' with the remark, "Wasn't the quarantine so well done that you have no questions?" Yoon sharply stated, "The victims of political quarantine are the people." He even directly mentioned former President Moon, lamenting, "The commander-in-chief of the armed forces asked the world to lift sanctions because North Korea would denuclearize. In such a situation, what would happen to the defense system? Ultimately, the military became debilitated."

It is clear that the previous government's 'blind' nuclear phase-out policy led to the collapse of the nuclear ecosystem and the destruction of power supply safety. As a result, Korea Electric Power Corporation suffered losses exceeding 20 trillion won. This was due to canceling new nuclear plants and delaying the operation of completed ones, instead choosing more expensive liquefied natural gas (LNG) as an alternative power source. The previous government is also not free from responsibility in the jeonse fraud and drug crimes. Decisions such as dismantling the Securities Crime Joint Task Force and tightening prosecution were the seeds that led to the current situation.

However, it is hard to find any sense of infinite responsibility in the president's recent actions. If the intention is to highlight the previous government and the opposition's responsibility with less than a year left before the general election, the effect is now wearing off.

The Blue House's position is that these issues surfaced during the process of pushing reforms, not merely by exposing past government mistakes, but the public clearly expressed through the presidential election their desire to correct the previous administration's errors. Around the first anniversary, the only direction President Yoon provided for national governance was his remark at a luncheon that "the second year of governance will focus on addressing economic and livelihood crises."

President Yoon's 'closed-off image' is one of the main reasons his approval ratings have remained confined within a narrow range throughout the year. The president, who promised to prioritize communication, has instead caused anxiety throughout the public service by pre-announcing 'bold personnel measures' to officials who are supposed to refine and lead government tasks from the ground up. If the 'closed-off image' spreads from the opposition, who have been stigmatized as spoilers without even face-to-face meetings over the past year, and from the Blue House press corps trapped behind a concrete wall after just six months, to the entire public service, it is obvious that not only approval ratings but the very foundation of the Yoon administration's national agenda will be shaken.

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