Fawning media coverage has made the South Korean leader more popular than ever, but critics fear there is a dark side to Moon Jae-in – his snuggling up to North Korea
S outh Korea’s new president has the sort of fanbase one usually associates with K-pop idols, film stars and athletes.
After the largest demonstrations in Korean history led to the removal of his predecessor, Park Geun-hye, on charges of bribery and abuse of power, Moon Jae-in was elected on May 9 with the widest margin of any previous president – 5.57 million votes. His approval ratings have since soared to heights usually enjoyed by wartime leaders such as US presidents Harry Truman, George W. Bush, John F. Kennedy and Franklin Delano Roosevelt – and despots such as Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In March 2016, The Washington Post ran a story describing Putin’s 83 per cent approval rating as “jaw-droppingly high”. Last month, Moon’s hit 84.1 per cent.
Critics say Korean media have been undeservedly kind to Moon. “After more than a month, I think it’s time for the media to call time on the honeymoon and get to reporting on the administration properly, ” said John Power, a former journalist with the Korea Herald . “The fawning coverage is way over the top.”
Such coverage includes stories about how attractive his bodyguard is, how cute his pets are, how popular his jacket is, that he held a meeting without wearing a jacket or even that he sometimes eats a cheap lunch.
“President Moon Jae-in did it again!” the Korea Herald posted on Facebook on June 10. “A surprise visit to a Cheong Wa Dae cafeteria on Friday to have a US$3 lunch with his employees and stroll around the grounds of the presidential office.”
“Moon visited the Blue House cafeteria and stood in a line like everybody else, ” the Korea JoongAng Daily reported that same day, “a scene that managed to charm the public.”
Moon’s fiercest defenders are known as “Moonppas” or “Moon Guards”, in a nod to Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) Red Guards. Kim Ne-mo, a spokeswoman for former presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo, told the Korea JoongAng Daily about her experience with Moonppas. “When a story about Moon comes up on Naver [Korea’s most popular website] , whether it is positive or negative, thousands of replies are posted in just a couple of minutes – exponentially in favour of Moon, ” she said.
This is only the third time Koreans have elected a progressive president. The first was Kim Dae-jung in 1997, the “Nelson Mandela of Asia” who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his “Sunshine Policy”, which brought rapprochement with Pyongyang after 50 years of hostility. The second was Roh Moo-hyun in 2002, who later committed suicide amid a bribery scandal. Two right-leaning presidents followed: Lee Myung-bak in 2007 and Park in 2012.
