President Lee Jae Myung on Friday reaffirmed his commitment to keeping Cabinet meetings open to the public, expressing "deep regret over false claims" that live broadcasts were preventing ministers from speaking freely.
Lee defended the practice, insisting that broadcasting Cabinet meetings live did not prevent ministers from openly challenging him or expressing dissent.
"We are making part of the Cabinet meetings open to the public, in whom sovereignty rests, and I cannot agree with calls from some quarters to hold the meetings entirely behind closed doors," Lee wrote in a post on X.
“What are your thoughts on this?” he added, inviting the public to weigh in on the controversy
His remarks came a day after the Hankook Ilbo reported that about 10 Cabinet ministers had asked Prime Minister Han Seong-sook to urge Lee to scale back live broadcasts of Cabinet meetings. The report said the ministers feared that openly challenging the president could cause him to lose face and lead to policy decisions being made without sufficient deliberation.
The newspaper also reported that some ministers had raised concerns about Lee's frequent use of social media to communicate policy positions.
In a lengthy post on X titled "On the controversy over public cabinet meetings," Lee disputed key details of the report.
"According to what I've been told, apart from one minister saying at a dinner hosted by the prime minister that 'holding Cabinet meetings in public is difficult,' reports that...
President Lee Jae Myung on Friday reaffirmed his commitment to keeping Cabinet meetings open to the public, expressing "deep regret over false claims" that live broadcasts were preventing minister...