![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/news-p.v1.20260811.4fd81345fa53488da12ea6794d9ac14e_P1.jpg\")
\uc0ac\uc9c4 \ud655\ub300 President Lee Jae Myung is announcing the opening of a cabinet meeting at the Sejong Government Complex on the 11th. [Yonhap News] <\/p>\n \uc0ac\uc9c4 \ud655\ub300 President Lee Jae Myung is announcing the opening of a cabinet meeting at the Sejong Government Complex on the 11th. [Yonhap News] <\/p>\n
“Strict censure must be carried out against irresponsible or incompetent public officials.”<\/p>\n
President Lee Jae Myung sent a warning to the public office at a Cabinet meeting held at the Sejong Government Complex on the 11th.<\/p>\n
The meeting was held to emphasize the will to foster future industries such as SMR (small module reactors), renewable energy, quantum computers, aerospace, and advanced bio, as well as the three major megaprojects. However, at the end of the meeting, President Lee brought up the attitude of public officials to serve. It seemed a bit out of the blue.<\/p>\n
The approval rating has dropped to the lowest point…Who’s responsible<\/p>\n
“I would like to say something to the ministers, the chairmen and the ministers of each ministry.”<\/p>\n
President Lee opened the door. “Most of them work hard and serve the people faithfully, but some of them abuse their given authority to pursue private interests or do not do what they have to do properly,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Please give more thorough rewards and rewards to competent and accomplished public officials,” he said. “If you try hard to do well but fail, you should exclude reprimands or audits,” he said.<\/p>\n
President Lee was not the first to emphasize compensation for competent and accomplished officials. It has repeatedly announced the principle of “new punishment” for ineligible public officials. At a Cabinet meeting in December last year, he pointed out, “The higher the rank and the more influenced by politics, the less capable they are, but there are quite a few cases where they hold on with connections.”<\/p>\n
However, on this day, the expression of “irresponsible and incompetent public officials” was newly brought up under the premise of “extremely partial.” This is why there is an interpretation that it may have in mind the person who should be responsible for the recent policy turmoil.<\/p>\n
Some view this remark as a link to the recent decline in support for state affairs. In a Realmeter survey earlier this month, President Lee’s positive assessment of state affairs reached 43.3 percent, the lowest since his inauguration. The negative rating was 53%.<\/p>\n
If the president’s approval rating falls below 50%, the burden on policy implementation will increase. Even if the same policy is introduced, side effects are likely to be highlighted rather than performance. Therefore, the remarks are a warning to actively work in a shrinking public office, and at the same time, it is also read as a message that those who are responsible for the state of affairs are responsible.<\/p>\n
Even under pressure to resign…people who are not responsible<\/p>\n
President Lee mentioned the need for a Cabinet reshuffle to mark the first year of his inauguration in June. “In the future, I think it will be a period of time to properly promote planned new things,” he said. “I’m thinking about reorganizing it with resources that fit it.”<\/p>\n
At that time, it was predicted that the second cabinet reshuffle would be carried out soon. However, as it was delayed due to overseas trips, interest in the candidate group for cabinet reshuffle also subsided. However, if public sentiment has been moving away in the last two to three months, it is necessary to look back on the cause with a cool head.<\/p>\n
First, the policy chief of the presidential office of Yongbum Kim comes to mind. Not only the ruling party but also Cho Kuk, head of the innovation policy institute of the Cho Kuk Innovation Party, are calling for his resignation over the single-stock leveraged exchange-traded fund (ETF) scandal.<\/p>\n
The KOSPI, which was above the 9,000 mark, could have been a representative economic achievement of the Lee Jae Myung government if well managed. However, it served as an opportunity for public sentiment to turn around as foreign media called it a “gambling” in the soaring market for leveraged ETFs.<\/p>\n
Complaints from the industry surrounding Minister of Employment and Labor Kim Young-hoon are also growing. Some criticize that he is taking the same position as he was when he was chairman of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions rather than a minister of ministry. The implementation of the Yellow Envelope Act, the “N% Performance Benefit” and the easing of the 52-hour workweek have been at the center of controversy every day.<\/p>\n
In particular, they are reluctant to prepare specific guidelines on whether incentives are subject to labor-management negotiations under the Yellow Envelope Act. Finally, President Lee ordered again at the Cabinet meeting, “The specific scope of the ‘labor dispute’ allowed by the Yellow Envelope Act should be set by the enforcement ordinance or enforcement regulations.” Critics point out that it only represents the labor community’s position on the issue of easing the 52-hour workweek in the Mega Special Zone.<\/p>\n
Defense Minister Ahn Kyu-baek is also at the center of the controversy. Suspicions of desertion resurfaced, and there was a series of controversies over military discipline and remarks about Mao Zedong’s quotes. In one poll, 75.6% of the respondents said they had to “step back.”<\/p>\n
Currently, the Ministry of National Defense is pushing for major pending issues such as the integration of military academies and the early return of wartime operational control. This is why there is a growing question of whether a minister who is not trusted by the people can continue to pursue national tasks.<\/p>\n
In addition, Deputy Prime Minister Koo Yoon-chul over the recent real estate tax reform and Justice Minister Jung Sung-ho, who has been controversial over the revision of the Criminal Procedure Act, are partly responsible for the policy confusion.<\/p>\n
After the ‘August 17 National Convention’ is important<\/p>\n
Officials observe that a cabinet reshuffle will take place when the Democratic Party of Korea’s “August 17 National Convention” is over and a new party leader is elected. This is because we need someone who can help us in state affairs, whether it is recruiting a person from the party or from outside.<\/p>\n
However, the president’s approval rating cannot rise by itself just by reshuffling. It is necessary not only to have the ability to “promote new things properly” but also to read the public sentiment. The people may already have their own answers to who the president referred to as “irresponsible and incompetent public officials.”<\/p>\n
After all, what matters is not the size of personnel management. It is to hold the responsibility for creating confusion in state affairs and correct wrong policies. The government should immediately resolve its twisted tax policy. Only then can President Lee give his belief that what he called “new punishment” is not a slogan but a principle of state administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\uc0ac\uc9c4 \ud655\ub300 President Lee Jae Myung is announcing the opening of a cabinet meeting at the Sejong Government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[33081,174,60106,31,146,50724,60104,10451,45083,60107,4841,60108,33,60105,16973],"class_list":["post-116702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-korea","tag-convention","tag-corruption","tag-government-sejong-government-complex","tag-korea","tag-lee-jae-myung","tag-leverage","tag-pick","tag-public-officials","tag-public-opinion","tag-public-service-society","tag-republic-of-korea","tag-sejong-office","tag-south-korea","tag-state-council","tag-yonhap-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}