South Korea's largest opposition party leader goes on a hunger strike to protest against Yoon Seok yeol's policies. Democratic Party leader Yoon Seok yeol
On August 31st local time, Lee Jae myung, the leader of South Korea's largest opposition party, the Democratic Party of Korea, announced a hunger strike to protest against President Yoon Seok yeol's policies starting from that day. In the 2022 South Korean presidential election, Lee Jae myung faced off with Yoon Seok yeol. Since Yin Xiyue took office for over a year, Li Zaiming has repeatedly criticized his policies, including his passive response to Japan's Fukushima nuclear contaminated water discharge into the sea. At the same time, Yin Xiyue is facing difficulties such as low approval ratings.
Rare actions
On August 31st, Li Zaiming celebrated his first anniversary as the head of the Communist Party of China. On the same day, he held a press conference in Congress and announced that he would protest against President Yoon Seok yeol's policies as a South Korean with a dying mentality.
Li Zaoming's reasons for protest include: the government's poor economic management, its failure to bridge political differences, and its lack of accountability for the stampede accident of Itaewon last October. In the recent highly publicized issue of Fukushima nuclear contaminated water discharge into the sea, Li Zaiming accused the government of Yin Xiyue of not only failing to express opposition, but also becoming an accomplice.
Li Zaiming also made three demands to the government of Yin Xiyue, namely apologizing to the people, expressing opposition to the discharge of contaminated water from Fukushima nuclear power into the sea, restructuring the cabinet, and "completely" changing the way of governance.
Starting at 1 pm that day, Li Zaiming began a hunger strike and sit in the tent set up in front of the main building of the parliament. He was wearing a white shirt, without a tie, sitting cross legged at a small table. The leadership team led by the whip of the Democratic Party of China, Park Kwong chuen, and Secretary General Zhao Zhengshi, were present to cheer.
According to reports, Li Zaiming did not provide a deadline for the hunger strike protest. In South Korean politics, it is not uncommon to draw attention to its stance through hunger strikes.However, the three requirements proposed by Li Zaiming may not be easily implemented.
"Last resort"
There is a reason why Li Zaiming called the hunger strike protest a "last resort". In the South Korean presidential election held in March 2022, Lee Jae ming, the presidential candidate of the Joint Democratic Party and former governor of Gyeonggi Province, was regarded as the popular "successor" of the then President Moon Jae-in, and his main competitor was Yin Xiyue. The final election results showed that Yin Xiyue won by a narrow margin.
After the government of Yin Xiyue took office in May 2022, Li Zaiming, as the leader of the largest opposition party, the Democratic Party of China, has repeatedly criticized his policies in the field of domestic and foreign affairs.
For example, in April this year, Lee Jae ming criticized Yoon Seok yeol's diplomacy with the United States as a humiliating one in response to the results of the South Korean US summit.
At the same time, the Democratic Party urged the government of Yoon Seok yeol to decisively respond to media reports of US intelligence agencies monitoring the South Korean government, immediately protest strongly to the US government, and investigate the truth.
Last month, several opposition parties and civic groups, including the Democratic Party, held a large-scale rally in the center of Seoul, strongly urging the Japanese government to revoke the decision to discharge Fukushima nuclear contaminated water into the sea, and demanding that the Yoon Seok yeol government take measures to prevent the discharge of Fukushima nuclear contaminated water into the sea.
At the same time, Li Zaiming has been under investigation multiple times in his first year as the leader of the Communist Party of China, involving allegations of dereliction of duty. But Li Zaiming called these accusations fabricated and had political motives behind them. Spokesperson Jiang Xianyou of the Democratic Party of China stated on September 1st that Lee Jae ming will be summoned by the prosecution again on September 4th.
Faced with difficulties
The Common Democratic Party is not the only party that holds a critical attitude towards the Yin Xiyue government. According to reports, the National Democratic Labor Union of South Korea launched a two-week general strike in July with the slogan "urging the resignation of the Yoon Seok yeol regime".
Over the past year since taking office, Yin Xiyue has made many moves in the field of domestic and foreign affairs, but has also exposed many problems. During this period, Yoon Seok yeol's approval rating continued to hover around 40%, and South Korean society criticized the government heavily.
In fact, Yin Xiyue has faced significant obstacles since taking office. In the 2022 presidential election, there was only a 0.73 percentage point difference in vote share between Yin Xiyue and Li Zaiming, which is the smallest difference in previous presidential elections. In addition, Yoon Seok yeol has been working as a prosecutor for a long time and won his first public office election in just over 8 months of politics, becoming the first South Korean president to lack experience in parliamentary politics since his direct election.
Afterwards, challenges followed one after another. At the end of October last year, when a large number of people were attending a Halloween party in Itaewon Cave, Longshan District, Seoul, a serious stampede accident occurred, causing hundreds of deaths and injuries. Subsequently, the official investigation results showed that relevant departments, including local governments, failed to develop security measures in advance, resulting in misjudgment of the situation, delayed information sharing, lack of coordination and cooperation among relevant departments, and delayed rescue efforts, ultimately leading to the occurrence of the accident.
In terms of diplomacy, some policy proposals of the Yin Xiyue government have also been criticized. For example, in March of this year, it announced the establishment of a public compensation fund by the South Korean side to raise funds from the private sector and pay compensation to Korean victims who were forcibly conscripted as laborers by Japanese colonizers between 1910 and 1945. This move was welcomed by Japan and the United States, but criticized by opposition parties in South Korea for "betraying history.".
To make matters worse, since Yin Xiyue ran for president, his wife Jin Jianxi and her family have been constantly exposed with various scandals, affecting their approval ratings. For example, in July, a South Korean court sentenced Choi Eun Soon to one year in prison, upheld the first instance verdict, and arrested Yoon Seok yeol's mother-in-law Choi Eun Soon on suspicion of forging a bank deposit balance certificate. In the history of Korean constitutionalism, the current president's mother-in-law was arrested in court for the first time. Yin Xiyue's office will not comment on this matter.
At present, the South Korean economy is facing challenges such as a sluggish manufacturing industry, a weak business environment, a sluggish real estate market, and weak exports.
In this context, South Korea's Gallup released a poll on September 1st, which showed that Yoon Seok yeol's policy received a positive rating of 33% and a negative rating of 59%. His performance in dealing with some diplomatic issues, Fukushima nuclear contaminated water discharge into the sea, economy, people's livelihood, and prices has become a "negative rating". Regarding the impact of Fukushima nuclear contaminated water discharge on the ocean and aquaculture industry, 75% of respondents expressed concern, and 60% of respondents expressed "taboo eating seafood".
A poll released by Gallup last week also showed that South Korean people are not optimistic about the economic prospects under the leadership of the Yoon Seok yeol government. 55% of respondents expect the South Korean economy to "deteriorate" in the next year, while only 18% of respondents believe it will "improve.".
Related data also shows that the Yin Xiyue government is facing challenges in improving the economy and people's livelihoods. The South Korean government released a report on economic policy directions for the second half of 2023 in July, predicting a 1.4% growth in gross domestic product this year, a 0.2 percentage point decrease from the expected 1.6% in December last year.