Author and commentator Yu Si-min. [Newsis]
Author and commentator Yu Si-min. [Newsis]

Yu Si-min, a commentator aligned with the broad ruling camp who has been sharply critical of President Lee Jae Myung in recent days, said Thursday that the president's approach over the past year risks throwing his political coalition into chaos and leaving him unable to achieve his own goals.

Yu made the remarks on MBC's "News High Kick," saying he believed the president intended to ease political polarization and govern in a way that builds broad national consensus — but that the method being used was the problem.

"My concern is this: when I ask whether the president can achieve that through the approach he has taken over the past year, the answer is no," Yu said, adding that he believed Lee had set out to be "a president for everyone."

He went on to say that the current approach "not only fails to achieve that goal, but actually runs counter to what the people who rescued politician Lee Jae Myung from prosecutorial authoritarianism wanted — and what his supporters hoped for. It could end up destroying his own political base, leaving the politics of unity he envisions unrealized, and producing a result worse than if he had never tried at all."

Yu said his personal hope was for the president to take "a safer path" — one that consolidates the progressive-liberal coalition that elected him while gradually expanding toward the center and moderate conservatives. He added that "the president focusing on delivering results for people's livelihoods and policy, while the Democratic Party of Korea and the progressive camp strengthen unity and solidarity in support, is the safe and beneficial approach for President Lee."

Asked about criticism from within the ruling camp that his earlier remarks — including what some described as calls for a "reconstruction" of the party and predictions of inevitable defeat — amounted to a curse or ill-wishing, Yu said: "I am not casting a curse. I am saying that the president is heading down an extremely dangerous political path."

On his earlier suggestion that President Lee was likely the leader of what he called the "new Lee Jae Myung" faction, Yu said he had meant that "the president is acting like the head of a faction, and I was saying that if he continues doing so, it will cause problems for everyone."

Regarding the Democratic Party's upcoming leadership convention, Yu said the president clearly wanted a particular candidate to win. "Either the candidate the president has picked becomes leader, or a candidate he did not want does — one of the two," he said. He added that "if the president accepts that the party leader is not his subordinate and works with that person the way he would with a career civil servant, there will be no problem."

When asked whether he would agree to a meeting if Cheong Wa Dae requested one to seek his advice, Yu said he had no intention of meeting. "I think a public relationship is enough," he said.


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