China News Service, March 14 (Reporter Meng Xiangjun) On March 10, in the 20th South Korean presidential election, more than 34 million voters elected the next leader of the country-Yin Xiyue, a "political amateur" who has been a prosecutor for 26 years. .
His opponent, Lee Jae-myung, the "popular successor" of current President Moon Jae-in, lost the election by a narrow margin of 1%.
The newly elected President of South Korea, Yoon Seok-wook.
Photo by Liu Xu
For the first time, the presidency will go to a candidate who has no experience in parliamentary politics;
For the first time, the vote difference between the top two candidates in the general election was so small;
For the first time, there will be a situation of "toward Ono" in the political arena;
For the first time, since the direct election of the president, the "convention" of the conservative and progressive camps taking turns in power every 10 years is broken...
Data map: South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
The current round of political reshuffle in South Korea has created an unprecedented pattern for decades.
And Wen Zaiyin, who has only been out of office for two months, can he crack the "Blue House Curse" and retire?
New president investigates former president
Is Korean politics a "circle"?
As a candidate for the National Power Party, the largest opposition party in South Korea, it took less than a year for Yin Xiyue to enter the political arena to the Blue House.
With more than 20 years of career as a prosecutor, Yin Xiyue won the title of "Iron Masked Censor".
His entanglement with the "presidents" reflects the ups and downs of South Korea's political history.
At the end of 2007, as a presidential candidate, Lee Myung-bak was suspected of participating in the stock price manipulation case of BBK Securities, and Yin Xiyue participated in the investigation of the case.
At that time, Li Mingbo passed the risk and successfully became the president. He resigned in 2013.
His successor is Park Geun-hye.
In December 2012, Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak met at the Blue House for the handover of power. The two shook hands at the scene.
After Park Geun-hye took office, the National Intelligence Service of South Korea was exposed to use the Internet to intervene in politics to help Park Geun-hye win the election.
It is Yin Xiyue who is in charge of investigating and handling the case.
But this year, Yin Xiyue was demoted to district attorney after revealing on TV that she was pressured by the upper management.
During this time, Yin Xiyue was appreciated by one person - Moon Jae-in, then the leader of the opposition Common Democratic Party.
Moon Jae-in lost to Park Geun-hye by a narrow margin in that election.
In 2016, the big case of Park Geun-hye's "confidence in politics" was unveiled, and Yin Xiyue was selected as the leader of the special inspection team; the following year, Wen Zaiyin won the general election and quickly promoted Yin Xiyue.
Yin Xiyue played a key role in the investigation and prosecution of more than 100 former senior government officials and corporate executives, including Park Geun-hye's impeachment case, Park's close friend Choi Soon-sil, and the "Prince" Lee Jae-yong of South Korean company giant Samsung.
In May 2017, former South Korean President Park Geun-hye and close friend Choi Soon-sil (right) sat in the dock together.
The old BBK case of another former president more than a decade ago has also surfaced again.
The former president is Lee Myung-bak.
Both Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak were eventually sent to prison by Yin Xiyue "by hand".
Moon Jae-in's government appointed him as attorney general in 2019 in recognition of his iron-fisted approach to fighting corruption without fear of power.
Forensic vindictive sensation
Former heroes become rivals
I thought that Yin Xiyue's "high light" life started smoothly, but unexpectedly, the turning point came soon after.
The reason is that in 2019, Moon Jae-in's ruling party advocated judicial reform in order to check and balance the procuratorial organs.
Its push to set up an anti-corruption agency independent of the prosecution was strongly opposed by the opposition party and the prosecution.
In South Korea, the law gives prosecutors great power. Although the chief prosecutor is appointed by the president, he is not affected by the change of the president. Prosecutors can be independently responsible for the investigation and results of their domestic criminal cases.
This also makes the power of the procuratorate led by the attorney general easy to be abused.
Data map: Cao Guo.
Image source: Visual China
Therefore, Moon Jae-in has successively appointed his confidant Cao Guo and a senior politician who has served three presidents as the Minister of Justice, aiming to weaken the power of the Attorney-General and trigger Yin Xiyue's counterattack.
Yin Xiyue strongly believed that Cao Guo was using power for personal gain, and coupled with the huge pressure of the opposition to launch 3 million demonstrations, Cao Guo, who had been in office for more than a month, was forced to resign.
Since the Cao Guo incident, the rift between Yin Xiyue and the ruling party has deepened day by day.
"Korea Economy" commented that the incident has surpassed the confrontation between the ruling and opposition political circles, triggering an extreme phenomenon of social division in South Korea.
On April 15, 2020 local time, South Korea launched the 21st parliamentary election in the "red alert" of the epidemic.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Zeng Nai
But Moon is determined to push for reform.
After Cao Guo's successor Qiu Mei Ai took office, he greatly replaced the top prosecutors, and Yin Xiyue asked to investigate Qiu Mei Ai's violations.
Qiu Meiai then launched the investigation and command, and imposed suspension and punishment on Yin Xiyue. In March 2021, Yin Xiyue announced her resignation and left.
However, Qiu Meiai also resigned due to various reasons.
Four months later, Yin Xiyue announced that she would join the National Power Party, the largest opposition party, and soon became the party's presidential candidate.
The former hero has become the biggest opponent.
During the election campaign, Yin Xiyue responded to reporters' questions and said that if elected, the Moon Jae-in government would be investigated for "acquisition and settlement", and she would not interfere in the process.
In this regard, Moon Jae-in expressed "strong anger" and demanded an apology.
The relationship between the two sides is on the verge of breaking down.
Election intensifies rift in public opinion
Blue House spokesman sheds tears
On March 10, 2022 local time, South Korea's largest opposition National Power Party candidate Yin Xiyue won the 20th presidential election.
Today, Yin Xiyue has been elected as the new president.
Scene after scene, the drama of Korean politics is unexpected.
However, the "Hankyoreh Daily" commented that in terms of state administration and policies, neither Yin Xiyue nor his main opponent, Li Zaiming, made promising promises in this election.
The two were obsessed with negative competition, and the final vote gap was only 0.73%.
Voters showed a "warning sentiment" to both.
According to an exit poll conducted by the three major TV stations of KBS, MBC and SBS in South Korea, 49.3% of the respondents were not satisfied with the candidate they chose.
The conflicts between regions, ideologies, old and new generations, and genders have not been bridged since the "vindictiveness" of the judicial inspection, and this election has further exacerbated them.
At the press conference on the 10th, Blue House spokesperson Park Kyung-mi burst into tears when he conveyed Moon Jae-in’s letter to supporters, causing the conference to be unexpectedly interrupted.
On March 10, Blue House spokesperson Park Kyung-mi shed tears when conveying Moon Jae-in's message, which temporarily interrupted the press conference.
Image source: South Korea's "Dong-A Ilbo".
After sorting out her emotions, she reappeared and said that Moon Jae-in believes that "the important thing now is to overcome contradictions and achieve national unity." Yonhap News Agency reported that Moon Jae-in and Yin Xiyue made a similar statement when they congratulated him on his victory by telephone, Emphasizes that "the divisions and contradictions arising from the election should be freed from".
According to convention, the meeting between the two presidents, Wen Yin, will be held as early as next week.
If the two meet face-to-face, it will be the first time in 21 months since the Blue House Anti-Corruption Policy Council in June 2020.
One detail is that South Korea's "Dong-A Ilbo" disclosed that during the meeting, Yin Xiyue may have suggested that Moon Jae-in pardon Lee Myung-bak, who was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
At that time, it was with the support of Wen Zaiyin that Yin Xiyue personally put Li Mingbo in prison.
Data map: Park Geun-hye was escorted to the Seoul Central District Court for public trial.
In addition, on the last day of 2021, Park Geun-hye, who was originally sentenced to 22 years in prison, was pardoned by the Moon Jae-in government.
Yin Xiyue's victory this time means that after Park Geun-hye was impeached, the conservative camp, which once faced the "disaster of extinction", regained power after a lapse of five years.
There is an unprecedented situation in South Korea's political arena, "toward Ono".
Among the 300 seats in the National Assembly, the Common Democratic Party, which has become a "super opposition party", holds 172 seats, far more than the 106 seats of the Yin Xiyue National Power Party.
Analysis pointed out that Yin Xiyue, who lacks political experience, will face great resistance in forming cabinets, negotiating and governing the country.
It is expected that the Common Democratic Party will maintain a balance between "containment" and "co-governance", and the key lies in Yin Xiyue's determination to communicate and harmonious politics.
Moon Jae-in's ruling road review
Can you survive the Blue House curse?
With his opponent coming to power, can Moon Jae-in, who is leaving office in two months, break the "Blue House Curse"?
The South Korean president has been dubbed "one of the most dangerous positions in the world" because previous presidents, from Park Chung-hee to his daughter Park Geun-hye, from Chun Doo-hwan, Kim Dae-jung to Lee Myung-bak, have not escaped the fate of being liquidated.
Picture In July 2012, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak apologized to the public for the corrupt behavior of his brother and cronies.
Image source: CFP Vision China
The most special among them is Moon Jae-in's close friend and mentor - Roh Moo-hyun.
The friendship between the two began in the 1980s. They founded a law firm together. After Roh Moo-hyun entered politics, Moon Jae-in continued to stick to the legal profession.
The change occurred in 2003, when Roh Moo-hyun became the president of South Korea. Since then, Moon Jae-in has entered the Blue House three times to assist Roh Moo-hyun through the national confidence vote and the impeachment crisis, becoming a "golden green leaf".
However, in May 2009, Roh Moo-hyun, who had been living a leisurely farm life for only one year after his resignation, was implicated in a bribery case by others.
Data map: The late former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.
Moon Jae-in was deeply saddened by the death of Roh Moo-hyun. He realized that politics is "tougher than tigers" and once refused to participate in politics.
But later, he gradually returned to the political center, and finally entered the once sad place.
In May 2017, Moon Jae-in, the candidate of the Common Democratic Party, won the 19th South Korean presidential election and shook hands with the people to celebrate.
Moon Jae-in was described by Korean media as "the shadow of Roh Moo-hyun".
Looking at it now, the two administrations of Wenlu are quite similar in their handling of domestic and foreign affairs.
In 2007, Roh Moo-hyun set a precedent for the President of South Korea. He went to North Korea by land and crossed the military demarcation line between South Korea and North Korea with both feet to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
The two sides signed the Declaration on the Development of North-South Relations and Peace and Prosperity, laying a valuable foundation for ending the existing armistice system and establishing lasting peace on the peninsula.
On October 4, 2007, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. After the two signed the declaration, they raised their hands.
In 2018, Moon Jae-in also stepped into the side of the dividing line on foot, and he met with Kim Jong-il's son Kim Jong-un.
That time, Kim Jong-un also came to the side of the dividing line, becoming the North Korean supreme leader who set foot on South Korean soil for the first time since the Korean War.
On April 27, 2018, the inter-Korean summit was held in Panmunjom.
Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un raised their hands after signing the declaration, recreating the historic scene 11 years ago.
"I came here in order to recover the lost 11 years and to move forward," Kim Jong-un said at the time.
The "Panmunjom Declaration" signed by the two sides is considered to be the "peace milestone" closest to national reconciliation in more than half a century.
The scene of Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un holding hands together made the people of South and North Korea relive the historic moment 11 years ago in tears.
On June 30, 2019, U.S. President Trump, accompanied by South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his party, arrived in the Demilitarized Zone between the DPRK and the ROK by helicopter and will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
In the past two years, the leaders of the ROK and the DPRK have met four times. From Singapore to Hanoi, the leaders of the DPRK and the US have met twice in the world.
However, the talks between the DPRK and the U.S. failed to resolve the fundamental contradiction and eventually broke down.
On September 18, 2018, Moon Jae-in left a message on the guestbook at the headquarters of the Workers' Party of Korea, and Kim Jong-un witnessed the scene.
The content of the message was: "Peace and prosperity, the nation is of one heart!".
Even so, the progressives of Moon Jae-in, who took on the mantle of "Sunshine Policy" by Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, still took a monumental step.
The situation on the peninsula once ushered in a spring breeze.
On February 10, 2018, at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, the Korean and Korean women's ice hockey team made their debut. Moon Jae-in and IOC President Bach attended the game.
The scene is for the North Korean cheerleading team.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Cui Nan
In the period of Wen and Lu, in internal affairs, they faced the powerful chaebols and the procuratorial system, strictly investigated corruption and collusion between government and enterprises, and "stabbed them".
Therefore, Yin Xiyue and conservatives strongly opposed Moon Jae-in's judicial reform.
After Yin Xiyue takes office, the policy of the Moon government is expected to be overturned.
The situation on the Korean Peninsula, along with Moon Jae-in's personal destiny, will also lead to unpredictable new changes.
(over)