President Lee: "Demanding High Office Without Ability, Attacking from Within Under Guise of Reform"

President Lee Jae-myung stated, "Pure radicalism may be a problem, but it is an even bigger problem when those who lack ability demand high office, try to dictate personnel decisions or state policies according to their own will, and when that fails, push radical reform as a righteous cause to launch attacks from within."

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday, President Lee made the remarks while sharing a media column by Cho Hee-yeon, former superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, which analyzed signs of internal division surrounding the Democratic Party of Korea's national convention.

He also cited Cho's remarks: "It is not that comrades are struck for the sake of the revolution, but striking comrades itself becomes the revolution. When committing body and mind to sacrificial struggle, fighters were purity itself, but once the revolution turns into the system (power), perspectives of self-interest seep in, and the dynamics of individual politics and factional politics take hold."

President Lee's message is viewed as targeting hardliners within his own camp who have opposed government policies during the prosecution reform process.

In particular, Gyeonggi Province Governor Choo Mi-ae, Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Yong-min, and Lim Eun-jung, head of the Gwangju Regional Office of the Major Crimes Investigation Agency, had publicly voiced their opposition over the nomination of Kim Ji-yong as commissioner of the Major Crimes Investigation Agency.

President Lee had also previously expressed his discomfort in a post on X on October 5, writing, "I trust that surely will not be the case, but under no circumstances should anyone attempt to sway personnel appointments or specific investigations and indictments out of self-interest under the pretext of prosecution reform."
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.