Author Yu Si-min. [Yonhap]
Author Yu Si-min. [Yonhap]

Author Yu Si-min, who previously raised the prospect of the "inevitable failure of the Lee Jae Myung administration," has again criticized President Lee — this time over the so-called "New Lee Jae Myung" movement.

Speaking on his YouTube channel "2-Minute News" on Tuesday, Yu said he had felt uneasy about President Lee's conduct "since last autumn."

Yu said that when the National Assembly began discussions on prosecutorial reform, presidential political affairs secretary Woo Sang-ho announced the government would take over the process. "It's a legislative matter that could simply be handled through party-government consultations — so why take it over?" Yu said he wondered at the time. "When the first legislative notice came out in January, I concluded something was going wrong."

He then criticized the government for not packaging the Criminal Procedure Act, the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency Act and the Public Prosecution Service Act together as a single reform bundle. "Can all of this happen against the president's wishes? If so, this government is headed for failure," he said.

"I have no choice but to conclude that all of this happened because the president opposes a complete separation of investigation and indictment powers from prosecutors," Yu said. "I believe the president has not given up on that yet."

He went on to say: "Is there any hypothesis other than 'the president opposes a complete separation of investigation and indictment, and wants to preserve prosecutors' investigative powers' that can consistently explain every action the government has taken in the prosecutorial reform process from last September until now?"

After watching events unfold for about six months, Yu said he had come to believe the president's actions were not the result of being pressed for time or distracted by other priorities. "There is a strong likelihood that all of this was planned by the president," he said.

On the New Lee Jae Myung movement, Yu said everything its members were doing "is not the reckless behavior of self-styled loyalists, but something the president and his aides planned and set in motion from the moment they took power." He added: "We have reached the point where that is the only conclusion to draw."

He then said the leader of the New Lee Jae Myung faction "is most likely not lawmaker Lee Eon-ju or anyone like her, but President Lee Jae Myung himself," adding, "I think the time has come to say this out loud."

Yu also invoked the adage that absolute power corrupts absolutely. "Even the finest fish market will smell of fish," he said. "Leave it without any restraint, any criticism, any limits, and every fish market will end up reeking of rot."

He added that someone with a sharp enough sense of smell must speak up. "If anyone who does is driven out with cries of 'You're damaging our fish market's reputation' or 'Aren't you trying to stir up anti-fish-market sentiment,' and no one is left who can say anything — that is when the rot sets in," he said.


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