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| President Moon Jae-in and ruling Democratic Party of Korea presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung pose before their tea meeting at Cheong Wa Dae, Tuesday. Yonhap |
By Nam Hyun-woo
Ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung met President Moon Jae-in, Tuesday, and promised to spare no effort in establishing the Moon administration "place in history."
This was seen as Lee attempting to style himself as a "rightful" successor to Moon, who is still enjoying a relatively high job approval rate though his presidency will end in less than 200 days, and pursuing unity in the ruling party, which was torn apart after a heated competition between presidential hopefuls during its primaries.
According to Cheong Wa Dae, Lee visited the presidential office and had a 50-minute meeting with the President over tea. During their conversation, Moon congratulated Lee on his victory in the primaries, saying "when you finish a competition, it is important to patch up all the wounds inflicted on each other to become one team."
Lee replied that the President had successfully pursued "the DPK's core values of caring for the people's livelihood, reform and peace so far," noting that he was also "a member of the Moon administration as the governor of Gyeonggi Province." Lee stepped down from this post Monday to run in the presidential election slated for March next year.
"I have been doing my best so far, but will go further so the success of the Moon administration and its legacy will go down in history," Lee said.
According to senior presidential secretary for political affairs Lee Chul-hee, who attended the meeting, Lee also apologized for his harsh criticism of Moon during the previous DPK primaries in 2017.
"I really wanted to apologize for being so harsh during the previous presidential election," he was quoted as saying. Secretary Lee said Moon replied in a relaxed manner: "Now you know how I felt back then as you have become the number one candidate."
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| President Moon Jae-in speaks to ruling Democratic Party of Korea presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung during their meeting at Cheong Wa Dae, Tuesday. Yonhap |
According to the secretary, during the meeting Lee told Moon that their ideas on many state affairs were "identical" and he agreed with most of the President's budget speech made at the National Assembly, Monday. In his speech, Moon stressed the importance of government investment in future industries.
The meeting is being interpreted by some observers as Lee being "recognized" as Moon's successor. Due to the conflicts during the 2017 primaries, Lee had been widely viewed as a member of the "anti-Moon faction," a fringe group in the DPK. With Lee highlighting their similarities, he appeared to be trying to embrace core members of the ruling party and pursue unity before the presidential race proper begins.
Neither Moon nor Lee mentioned the land development scandal in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, during the meeting the secretary said. The opposition parties have been alleging that Lee, who was mayor of Seongnam at the time of the suspicious land development project, is linked to the scandal, in which a small and newly established asset management firm raked in more than 1,000 times its investment in the project.
Cheong Wa Dae said it was ensuring that there can be no criticism that Moon is intervening in the presidential election; however the opposition claimed that Moon actually did this by meeting with Lee.
"There are chances that candidate Lee may be summoned by the prosecution (because of the scandal), and depending on the progress of the investigation, he could be detained," People Power Party presidential contender Yoon Seok-youl wrote on Facebook.
"It was clearly a wrong encounter and an act of intervening in the presidential election."
