Minister of Gender Equality and Family nominee Yong Hye-in resigned from the nomination on the 13th. Yong said she accepted the resignation proposal from the Democratic Party of Korea. As various favoritism allegations over Yong mounted and President Lee Jae-myung's approval rating kept falling, the Democratic Party of Korea felt burdened and asked her to step aside.
However, the People Power Party says the controversy surrounding Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won, whose confirmation hearing is set for the 15th, is more serious in terms of public sentiment than that involving Yong. There had long been signs that Yong would step down. Analysts say it is uncertain whether her resignation will become a turning point to lift President Lee's approval rating.
◇ Lee's approval hits record low... Kim Min-seok set the stage before Chuseok
The person said to have urged Yong to resign is Democratic Party of Korea leader Kim Min-seok. Rep. Kim Tae-seon of the Democratic Party of Korea, who serves as Kim's chief of staff, wrote on Facebook that day, "As chief of staff, I conveyed Party Leader Kim Min-seok's request for voluntary resignation to nominee Yong Hye-in after he weighed public sentiment." Kim also said, "Even if the concurrent holding of a proportional-representation seat was not a legal violation, there were aspects that did not fully meet the public's expectations and sentiment."
The Democratic Party of Korea stepped in directly because it judged the current administration's approval slide to be serious. In a survey of 1,000 people aged 18 or older nationwide conducted by Gallup Korea on the 8th to the 10th, the positive assessment of President Lee Jae-myung's job performance was 38%, the lowest since his inauguration. Reasons for negative assessments were ▲real estate policy (24%) ▲personnel (16%) ▲economy and livelihoods (10%) ▲issues of morality and evasion of one's own trial (6%) ▲overall doing poorly (4%). The negative assessment ratio reached 51%.
At 4 p.m. that day, the Democratic Party of Korea was scheduled to hold high-level consultations with the Blue House and the government. Although the plan was to discuss measures to stabilize prices ahead of next week's Chuseok, responses to the recent approval decline were also expected to be on the table. If Yong did not resign and proceeded to a confirmation hearing, negative public opinion about the administration could spread around Chuseok, which is seen as why the Democratic Party of Korea moved preemptively.
◇ Opposition focuses on grilling Kim Seung-won... "an unprecedented vested-interest cartel"
However, the People Power Party plans to keep up its offensive over the controversy involving nominee Kim Seung-won. In a commentary that day, People Power Party chief spokesperson Choi Bo-yun said, "Yong's resignation is not the end of dealing with this personnel debacle, but only the beginning," adding, "Next is Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won, who stands at the apex of an unprecedented vested-interest cartel and alleged illegality."
The opposition has raised allegations against Kim, including influence-peddling for approval of a new drug clinical trial, stock manipulation, and favoritism in family personnel expenses. The clinical-trial influence allegation is that in 2021, at the request of broker Yang Su-jin, Kim asked then Minister of Food and Drug Safety head Kim Gang-lip to expedite approval of Genencell's COVID treatment clinical trial plan. In return, Kim was promised a 5 million won donation and, in December 2024, received a suspension of indictment disposition on a charge of agreeing to broker a bribe under the Criminal Act.
A suspension of indictment is a disposition in which the prosecutor, considering various circumstances, does not bring a suspect to trial even though the crime is recognized. The People Power Party says prosecutors issued an improper suspension of indictment. The Democratic Party of Korea is attacking People Power Party lawmaker Han Dong-hoon, who is revealing recordings by individuals involved in the Kim Seung-won case, saying he illegally obtained investigative materials from the prosecution. The ruling party refused to adopt any of the witnesses requested by the opposition for the hearing and even argued that Rep. Han should instead be called as a witness.
Meanwhile, a key issue at the hearing is expected to be concern that, if appointed, Kim could order the cancellation of indictments in President Lee Jae-myung's various trials. That is because Kim is a co-head of the Democratic Party of Korea's "lawmakers' group for canceling indictments in President Lee Jae-myung's cases." Kim's position is that "the Minister of Justice has no authority to cancel indictments and I have no intention of directing the prosecutor general to do so."
The opinion poll mentioned in the article was conducted using CATI with live interviewers, calling randomly generated virtual mobile numbers provided by the three mobile carriers. The response rate was 9.4%, and the margin of sampling error was ±3.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. For details, refer to the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.