SOUTH KOREA: PRESIDENT YOON SET TO HOLD FIRST-EVER MEETING WITH OPPOSITION LEADER MONDAY

President Yoon Suk Yeol and opposition leader Lee Jae-myung are scheduled to meet for the first time this week, with many waiting to see what demands Lee would make following his party's huge victory in the April 10 legislative elections.

Yoon and Lee are slated to meet for tea at the presidential office at 2 p.m. on Monday, each accompanied by three advisers. The conversations are planned for an hour, but they might extend longer.

It will be the first time the two have held talks since Yoon took office in May 2022, and it indicates Yoon's intention to working more closely with Lee's Democratic Party (DP), which won 175 members in the 300-member National Assembly.

Yoon will be the first president to serve the whole five-year term in collaboration with an opposition-controlled legislature since South Korea's democratisation in 1987.

The Yoon-Lee meeting would not follow a set agenda since Lee consented on Friday to meet with the president without conditions after attempts to coordinate an agenda at the working level ended in failure.

The DP had originally presented a list of demands, which included approving Lee's promise made during the general election to distribute 250,000 won (US$182) to every member of the populace in order to aid in the restoration of their standard of living, accepting a special counsel investigation into the death of a Marine the previous year, and accepting Yoon's apology for vetoing several DP-led bills.

According to DP officials on Sunday, Lee is now choosing which issues to bring up with the president, with an emphasis on initiatives to improve people's livelihoods and alter the fundamentals of state operations.

In addition to calling for the creation of a four-party consultation body made up of the ruling and opposition parties, the government, and the medical community, the opposition leader is anticipated to bring up his cash handout pledge, the special counsel investigation, and the vetoes in an effort to break the impasse over medical reform.

The question of whether Lee would pursue a special counsel probe into claims of first lady Kim Keon Hee's stock price manipulation is also attracting attention.

2024-04-28T03:27:32Z dg43tfdfdgfd