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The Blue House on Aug. 9. (Kim Myoung-jin, staff photographer)

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is in the process of finalizing his decision about the group resignation tendered by Chief of Staff Noh Young-min and five senior secretaries at the Blue House to take responsibility for public anger over the real estate market. The soaring real estate prices that motivated the secretaries to tender their resignations present a troubling similarity, Blue House officials say, to the 2016 real estate controversy that precipitated the lame duck period of Roh Moo-hyun, South Korea’s previous progressive president. In a strange coincidence, both the Moon and Roh administrations ran into trouble with the real estate market in the fourth year of their five-year terms. Throughout the day on Sunday, speculation was rife in the Blue House about whose resignations Moon would accept.

Noh Young-min and the five secretaries who offered their resignation reportedly attended the Blue House’s daily situation briefing at 2 pm on Sunday. Five secretaries other than Noh tendered their resignations: Kang Gi-jung, senior secretary for political affairs; Kim Jo-won, senior secretary for civil affairs; Yoon Do-han, senior secretary for public communication; Kim Oe-sook, senior secretary for personnel management; and Kim Geo-sung, senior secretary for civil society. Some expected Moon to disclose which of the resignations he would accept on Sunday, but he ended up deferring that decision.

“The president isn’t fond of reshuffling personnel in an attempt to turn the situation around, but at the moment, public opinion is dire. I doubt he could reject all their resignations,” a senior Blue House official predicted.

In a Gallup Korea poll conducted on Aug. 4-6, 46% of respondents disapproved of Moon’s job performance, outweighing approval (44%) for the third week in a row. Considering that Moon enjoyed a 71% approval rating with just 21% disapproving only three months ago, the drop in ratings is disturbing, both in terms of speed and scale.

Blue House officials are anxiously watching Moon mull over the tendered resignations. “Recent trends remind me of the fourth year of the Roh administration, when problems were caused by a real estate boom. Apartment prices in Seoul shot up nearly 20% in 2006, and none of the prescriptions that the Blue House or the government offered to appease the public had any effect,” said another Blue House official.

President Moon Jae-in's approval ratings

According to figures provided by Kookmin Bank, apartment prices in Seoul rose 19.7% overall in 2006, and more than 50% in some of the frothiest neighborhoods, precipitating the rapid defection of the government’s support base. But whereas Roh’s approval rating fell to around 15%, Moon’s approval rating has remained above 40%. In short, he hasn’t lost his key support base.

“Even before his real estate measures, Roh had already lost the ‘grand coalition’ of Honam [South and North Jeolla Provinces] residents, people in their 40s, and office workers who’d formed his base of support, but Moon is in a different position,” said Bae Jong-chan, director of Insight K.

“On top of his robust support base, the opposition party’s lack of competitiveness is preventing a sharp fall in Moon’s approval ratings. If the opposition party were stronger, Moon couldn’t have kept his approval ratings at their current level,” Bae said.

Blue House officials tend to think that Moon will be forced to accept quite a few of his senior secretaries’ resignations if he wishes to block a further loss of public support. But even if he does, officials say, he’ll probably have to accept the resignations in several phases in order to forestall a sudden vacuum in senior positions in his administration.

Some observers think that Moon is likely to begin by replacing the secretaries of political affairs, civil affairs, and public communication because replacing both the secretaries of civil affairs and personnel management might slow down the process of appointing replacements, a process those two secretaries are in charge of handling.

“There isn’t a lot of time. The decision will be made early this week,” a Blue House official said. Some of the contenders for Noh’s replacement as chief of staff are Choe Jae-seong, former lawmaker; Yang Jeong-cheol, former director of the Institute for Democracy; and Woo Yun-geun, former ambassador to Russia.

By Seo Young-ji, staff reporter

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