Yoon expected to address election defeat after weekend

President Yoon Suk Yeol is expected to give a public statement sometime after the weekend about his party’s crushing defeat in the parliamentary elections, officials said Friday.

The exact way in which he will issue the statement is still undecided, though options under consideration include a press conference, an address to the nation or disclosing his remarks during a Cabinet meeting.

“Past presidents have expressed their position in some form when something like this happened,” a presidential official told Yonhap News Agency. “I think he will do it once he decides what to say.”

Yoon issued a message through his chief of staff Thursday, saying he will “humbly uphold the people’s will” shown in the opposition’s landslide victory in parliamentary elections the previous day and work to overhaul state affairs and stabilize people’s livelihoods.

The opposition bloc, led by the main opposition Democratic Party, won 192 seats in the 300-member National Assembly, while the ruling bloc led by Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP) secured only 108.

The coming weeks will also likely see the replacement of senior government and presidential officials, after Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, presidential chief of staff Lee Kwan-sup and all the senior presidential secretaries offered to resign Thursday.

Whether Yoon will accept all the resignations remains to be seen, as doing so before finding replacements would create a vacuum in the running of state affairs.

Still, the president is widely expected to accept the resignations of Han and chief of staff Lee, who has been praised for his job performance but partially blamed for the controversy surrounding the appointment of former Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup as ambassador to Australia.

The presidential office’s poor handling of the controversy, which centered on allegations Lee was essentially given an excuse to flee the country while under investigation over a Marine’s death, was widely cited as one of the factors that contributed to the ruling party’s election defeat.

Some of the names being mentioned as the next prime minister nominee include Reps. Joo Ho-young and Kwon Young-se of the PPP, Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo and former Vice National Assembly Speaker Lee Joo-young.

Potential candidates for presidential chief of staff include PPP Rep. Chang Je-won and former Korea Communications Commission Chairman Lee Dong-kwan.

Kim Han-gil, chief of the Presidential Committee of National Cohesion, has been mentioned as a candidate for both positions.

Yoon is also expected to replace several ministers and reorganize the presidential office as part of efforts to overhaul government operations.

There have been suggestions of the need to revive the position of senior presidential secretary for civil affairs to more accurately deliver the public’s voices to the president and reestablish the position of special minister for political affairs to strengthen communication between the presidential office and the National Assembly.