A clash between President Lee Jae-myung and hard-line prosecution reform advocates within the ruling bloc is intensifying over the nomination of Kim Ji-yong as head of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency. As the gap widens between the president, who seeks a stable launch for the new investigation and prosecution agencies, and hard-liners demanding tougher reform, analysts say Lee is being tested between moderate voters and his core base.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, on the 5th, Lee said no one should "try to sway personnel decisions and even specific investigation and indictment work out of personal motives under the pretext of prosecution reform." He added that "prosecution reform is carried out for the public, not to build the political legacy of particular individuals."
Lee stressed that "prosecution reform is not about taking revenge on the prosecution, but about making investigative and indictment functions work optimally while preventing their abuse by those in power." The remarks are read as signaling his intent to focus not only on launching the new criminal justice framework built around the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency and the Public Prosecution Agency, but also on embedding the system securely.
Hard-liners, by contrast, are not backing down from their position that holding officials accountable for past exercises of prosecutorial power is what completes reform. Gyeonggi Province Governor Choo Mi-ae, a leading hard-liner on the issue, publicly objected to Kim's nomination in a Facebook post early that morning, saying she would "leave the truth behind rather than keep a wretched silence."
Choo raised the 2020 Channel A case immediately after Lee posted on social media that "we must guard against radical claims that cannot be backed up, whether from the left or the right, and against irresponsible extremism." She went on to say there were "clear questions of falsity in the briefing given by the presidential office's senior secretary for public relations," making clear her view that Kim, who was in the chain of command in that case, is not free of responsibility. "Just when I expected prosecution reform to clear its final hurdle, a bullet came flying again from behind," she said.
Amid this standoff within the ruling bloc, a subtle shift has also emerged in Lee's approval ratings. In a Realmeter survey released that day, positive assessments of Lee's handling of state affairs stood at 37.4%, down 0.5 percentage point from the previous week. Among moderates, however, support rebounded 2.8 percentage points to 42.7% from 39.9%, while among liberals it fell 1.1 percentage points to 54.4% from 55.5%. With his overall rating little changed, support rebounded among moderates but weakened somewhat among liberals, his traditional base.
Some in the ruling bloc say the conflict over prosecution reform has become the biggest political burden on Lee's governance in the middle stretch of his term. "The situation requires emphasizing the stable governance and institutional reform that moderates want, while also preventing an exodus of core supporters who are sensitive to any retreat on prosecution reform," a senior Democratic Party lawmaker said. "The party leadership needs to fully explain the reasoning behind the appointment and win over those who oppose it."
The approval survey cited in this article was conducted from the 28th of last month through the 2nd of this month among 2,515 eligible voters aged 18 and over nationwide, using an automated response system with randomly generated mobile numbers only. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.0 percentage points at a 95% confidence level, and the response rate was 3.9%. Further details are available on the website of the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission.
