A former president like never before

Anyone can criticize the government. But the former president cannot, given his responsibility for all the mess.

Former President Moon Jae-in said Tuesday, “I have never seen such an incompetent government [like the Yoon Suk Yeol administration] during the 70 years of my life.” He made the same remarks Monday, when he and his wife traveled to two districts in Busan and Yangsan to rally support from voters for two Democratic Party (DP) candidates running in the April 10 parliamentary elections. On Tuesday, the former president moved on to Ulsan to help DP candidates in the legislative election. Moon said he wanted to alert the current administration, as it is “really ignorant and reckless.”

We are dumbfounded at his preposterous allegation. First of all, we have never seen any former president wear a jumper and travel to election battlefields to support candidates barely two years after their retirement. His predecessors stopped at just exchanging greetings with their former aides or candidates for elections when they visited. Moon himself said he wanted to be forgotten after retirement. Should he really criticize the government for being incapable?

When Moon was the president, our economic fundamentals collapsed. Due to his adherence to a political solution to economic problems, his government had to draw up 11 supplementary budgets during his five-year term. As a result, national debt soared by 400 trillion won ($296 billion) and the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio ascended to 50 percent. His push for a rapid hike in the minimum wage and the introduction of the rigid 52-hour workweek caused labor costs and prices to skyrocket. That’s not all. His blind push for a nuclear phase-out only to expand the share of renewables in the energy pie critically weakened our national competitiveness in reactors.

All the damage went to the people. The number of the unemployed shot up to 700,000 just for three years, and small merchants shut down one after another. The liberal administration concocted 27 countermeasures to address the mounting real estate prices. Nevertheless, Moon boasted of his government’s ability to rein in the heated property market. But 11 officials involved in manipulating housing data, including the head of Statistics Korea, are on trial on charges of fabricating numbers up to 125 times.

Moon’s ceaseless wishful thinking that North Korea would give up its nuclear weapons in return for peace only encouraged Pyongyang to advance its nuclear capabilities. He also should be held accountable for ever-worsening Korea’s relations with Japan.

Anyone can criticize the government. But the former president cannot, given his responsibility for all the mess. Moon is a former president of the likes we’ve never seen before.