President Lee Jae-myung is returning to social media politics. After cutting his posts to about half his monthly average, he has recently published as many as five in a single day, explaining policy results and his governing agenda directly to the public. The shift is read as an attempt to win over public opinion himself, after a mid-sized cabinet reshuffle, revisions to the tax reform plan and a change in the policy control tower failed to produce a clear rebound in his approval ratings.
On the 3rd, Lee posted on X, formerly Twitter, under the title "Paying off the last debt of the foreign exchange crisis after 30 years," saying that next year's budget will complete the repayment of public funds injected to overcome the 1997 foreign exchange crisis. He also shared an article published that day on the merger of the five power generation subsidiaries and reposted a message from his time as party leader declaring his "absolute opposition to the privatization of electricity, water, airports and railways," stressing that it was "carried out after four years."
He had also posted five times in a single day the previous day. As criticism mounted that the government's revision of its property tax reform plan amounted to a retreat from reform, he pushed back directly while actively publicizing economic results such as rising exports. It marks a clear departure from the restrained social media approach he had maintained until recently.
Lee's posts on X, including reposts, numbered 65 in January, 72 in February, 90 in March, 58 in April, 56 in May, 78 in June and 84 in July. In August, however, the figure plunged to 37, down 56% from July and the lowest level this year. With his approval ratings continuing to slide after the local elections, the drop was interpreted as a temporary pullback from social media, reflecting concern over the burden of message overload from the president weighing in on every issue himself.
But with public opinion showing no clear turnaround even after the personnel and policy overhaul, he appears to have reached again for his signature style of direct communication. Beyond social media, his messaging in governing has also shifted toward livelihood and on-the-ground issues.
At a meeting with senior secretaries and aides at the presidential office that day, Lee raised the recent controversy over the police handling of a missing person case and called for "internal self-correction and institutional improvement with bone-cutting resolve." With the opening of the Public Prosecution Office and the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency a month away, he stressed that "the goal of all reform lies in a real improvement in people's lives, in what is called livelihood reform," adding that "reform is completed and judged not in the text of the statute books but in the everyday lives of the people."
He also cited a case in which a foreign national enrolled in the National Pension Service for one month, then paid 119 months' worth of premiums retroactively in a lump sum to receive a pension. Lee instructed officials to "thoroughly examine whether there are loopholes that run counter to common sense or the principle of fairness."
