hankyoreh

President Moon Jae-in and President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol (Hankyoreh graphic)

Though two weeks have passed since the presidential election, current President Moon Jae-in and President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol have yet to meet.

It’s the first time in South Korean history that it has taken longer than 10 days for the incoming and outgoing presidents to meet.

A planned initial meeting on March 16 fell through four hours ahead of time due to issues including Yoon’s request for Moon to pardon former President Lee Myung-bak and the use of appointment powers. With Yoon’s plan for relocating the presidential office now also a factor, there is no sign yet of when the meeting might occur.

Working-level negotiations on Moon and Yoon’s meeting showed no sign of progress Tuesday.

Kim Eun-hye, the spokesperson for the president-elect, said Tuesday that the possibility was “always open,” but added that “no concrete additional schedule for working-level meetings has arrived yet.”

Speaking of the likelihood of the meeting coming to pass, Park Soo-hyun, the Blue House senior secretary to the president for public communication, only said it was “unpredictable.”

“We, along with the public, are looking forward to [the meeting] happening as quickly as possible,” he said.

A meeting the day before between Lee Cheol-hee, the Blue House senior secretary for political affairs, and Yoon’s chief of staff Chang Je-won also failed to yield results.

The first reason the originally scheduled meeting ended up canceled had to do with the issue of appointing successors to the current Bank of Korea (BOK) governor, Board of Audit and Inspection chairperson, and National Election Commission members.

Moon had reportedly hoped to hold discussions with Yoon on the appointment of successors, while Yoon had asked him not to appoint anyone. The emotionally charged differences grew deeper with the overt display of conflict between Moon and Yoon over the matter of relocating the presidential office to Seoul’s Yongsan neighborhood.

Delays in the meeting spell inevitable setbacks for the administration’s transition process.

The role of the financial sector has assumed growing importance amid the skyrocketing oil prices and inflation sparked by the war in Ukraine — but the question of which will coordinate those issues as the next BOK governor remains up in the air. Many are also concerned about vacuums arising in the responses to North Korea’s ongoing missile tests and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yoon Tae-gon, chief of the political analysis office at the political consulting firm Moa, said, “Both sides need to recognize that they have a shared responsibility.”

By Lee Wan, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]