Moon administration receives failing grade

According to an opinion poll commissioned by The Dong-A Ilbo marking its 101st anniversary and conducted by Research & Research on Sunday and Monday, real estate policies received the highest negative feedback at 70.7 percent among the five major areas of policies implemented by the Moon Jae-in administration. In all other areas – job creation, unity among people, economic growth, and inter-Korean relationship improvement – negative feedback was more prevalent than the positive one. The poll was conducted among 1,017 adults aged over 18 across the country.

Even considering that approval ratings of a president typically decrease toward the end of his or her term and more critical opinion of policies increases accordingly, the current administration should take it very seriously that all five areas had more negative feedback than the positive one. It is not to be easily brushed off that even among those in their 40s who tend to be more supportive of the administration had more critical opinions for real estate policies, job creation, and unity among people.

There could be a few mistakes in the process of implementing policies. However, one-sided operation of state matters quickly dismissing reasonable criticism and alternative suggestions is quite problematic. For real estate policies, which are under the most criticism among economic policies, the government has been forcing to reduce demand for the last four years despite many warnings of short housing supply. Even though the administration belatedly put forward a plan to expand housing supply under the leadership of the public sector on February 4, the credibility of real estate policies has been damaged after suspected speculation by the members of the Korea Land and Housing Corporation.

The administration’s distorted perspective of people only focusing on the pro-Moon support base, rather than all citizens, has been another issue. The ruling party passed a number of legislations after it won 180 seats in the general election in April last year, which gave them the power to do anything except for a constitutional amendment. The party shut off its ears to reasonable suggestions by experts in major policy fields and cooperation with the opposition party was gone. The poll results without a single area exceeding an average grade are stern evaluations by people of arrogance and closed government operation for the past four years.

Those in power are only evaluated based on their own policies and performance. The opposition party or the previous administration for responsibility is not to be blamed. The ruling party, though belatedly admitting its faults for real estate policies, is coming up with revision plans on a whim without concrete discussions with the government regarding the direction of revisions, leading to a suspicion that the sole focus of their plans is simply to win the re-election and by-election on April 7. The Moon administration should humbly accept people’s criticism and make bold shifts in policies during its remaining term.