Photo: Office of President in Yongsan. Credit: Yonhap News.
The snap election on June 3 meant that Lee Jae-myung 이재명 took office the very next day, without any transition period. When Lee and his staff arrived at the Office of the President in Yongsan 용산 대통령실 on June 5, they found it even emptier than expected. “It’s like a tomb,” said Lee in his first presidential briefing. “There’s nobody here. No computers, no printers. Not even a pen. It’s ridiculous.”
Presidential Spokeswoman Kang Yu-jeong 강유정 대통령실 대변인 elaborated in a later interview: “There was absolutely nothing at the office, not even an internet connection. I’m using my personal laptop for briefings. I don’t even know where I can get water. The president was trying to have tea with the cabinet, but there was no tea to serve.”
The nearby presidential residence had also been cleared out. “I’m told they don’t even have beddings” at the residence, said Lee, who spent his first night as president at an undisclosed safe house until the residence could be made ready. On June 6, Lee and First Lady Kim Hye-gyeong 김혜경 영부인 made an unscheduled visit to a market for groceries, “because there’s nothing to eat in the residence.”
Yoon Suk-yeol 윤석열’s first initiative as president was to move the office of the president out of the Blue House 청와대 to the Defense Ministry compound in Yongsan, and the presidential residence to the former Foreign Minister residence nearby. (In the process, Yoon drained the significance behind the name of this newsletter also.) Lee said he will return to the Blue House, which is both office and residence, before the year’s end. Lee has also said he will build a second presidential office in Sejong 세종, the administrative capital, before the end of his term.