President Gim Sang-cheol, having concluded his first cabinet meeting, rubbed his temples while leaving only a few senior secretaries behind.
It was an uncomfortable cabinet.
Because of the sudden turn of events involving the former president and first lady, he had taken office immediately upon election. Therefore, the meeting he presided over today had been attended mostly by holdovers from the previous administration, and they had not bothered to hide their hostility.
What was regrettable was that this uncomfortable cohabitation would last at least another month.
Until his nominees cleared the mountain called confirmation hearings, cold winds would inevitably blow at every cabinet meeting.
Sighing, he turned to the Senior Secretary to the President for Civil Affairs, who headed the Blue House inspection line.
“Chief Min. When do the appointments begin?”
“Yes. Starting with the prime minister post next week, the party is doing its best to wrap things up within this month.”
“No issues with the prime minister nomination hearing?”
“Actually... the opposition party seems to have caught wind of a few issues, but with the current atmosphere, I believe it will pass without trouble.”
Yi Chan-ho, who was facing his prime minister nomination the following week, was rather busy. There were various personal matters that needed to be sorted out.
The small mercy was that the president was taking the lead on this issue. President Gim had been able to launch an administration whose morality could not be expected for various reasons, and thanks to that, the people did not particularly demand spotlessly clean officials from the current government.
“I hear our prime minister-to-be has received quite a lot of money that can't be smoothed over?”
“Yes... it was a bit of a mistake.”
“Then don't waste your strength on useless things and just break through head-on.”
“...What do you mean by breaking through head-on?”
“Money that can't be explained—don't even think about persuading them. I'm telling you to mobilize your support base as much as possible and break through.”
In fact, President Gim was quite an expert on such matters.
Originally, he should have been in Cheongsong Correctional Facility by now, but he was a political 9-dan who had seized the presidency with extraordinary political instincts and a unique gambler's temperament.
“Ah, break through using base mobilization... Understood. Then I will convey to the prime minister to cooperate with the party and attempt a breakthrough.”
Having sent the Senior Secretary to the President for Civil Affairs off, he turned to the Senior Secretary to the President for Political Affairs, who handled National Assembly affairs.
“Chief Jeong. I was going to ask anyway—why has it been so chaotic inside and outside the party lately?”
“Well, it is appointment season, so...”
“That's not what I mean. Why is everyone making such a fuss about electric cars?”
“Sir?”
“Every person I meet is clamoring to loosen regulations. Rep. Gim, Rep. Choe, Rep. Park... How is it that for three days straight, only autonomous driving talk comes out of them?”
He was a political 9-dan. He knew very well what it meant when the same agenda was suddenly being pushed both inside and outside the party.
“Just how much are they stuffing their faces with behind the scenes?”
Honestly, he was a bit annoyed.
Absolute power of 190 seats... Contrary to such pretensions, his support base was actually not so absolute.
Though barely two weeks had passed since his inauguration, bills of demand from all walks of society poured down like rain.
The trade unions demanded labor law revisions, his supporters demanded 300,000 won, and the elderly demanded national pension increases. Well, up to here, these were also his campaign promises, so they were matters he could treat to like buying hamburgers, but there were also demands that discomforted him.
- Release former chairman Choe Man-gi, who was unjustly imprisoned!
- Reinstate former Assemblywoman Yi Myeong-ja!
They were demands for the release of political enemies.
Amnesty and reinstatement demands poured down on various figures, led by the activist circles who formed the mainstay of the current Min-guk Party, and with the Daehan Party having self-destructed, they were inevitably existences more uncomfortable to Gim Sang-cheol than the opposition party.
“I'm already splitting my head over various issues, and now the party has to act like this too? Tsk, tsk.”
“I am ashamed. Shall I relay this matter to the party, then...?”
“Forget it. I'm not saying this to carp about pocket money. I'm just saying, if you're going to do it, do it in moderation, that's all.”
Saying so, he turned his gaze to a political affairs report recently received from the lawmakers.
[Effects of Autonomous Vehicle Market Deregulation]
“...”
He knew all too well.
How many taxi drivers had lost their lives because of this one issue.
But in those five years, the autonomous driving market had grown explosively, and in America, flying cars were already being sold.
Now all global rating agencies say it. That the autonomous car market will soon become a hundreds-of-trillion-won market, and that soon there will be more AI drivers than human ones.
“Anyway, let's talk about this later after the appointments are finished.”
“Yes...”
“What on earth did the predecessors even do? Tsk tsk, every last one of them.”
*
“Your cabbage farming hit the jackpot? Candidate, are you mocking the people right now?!”
The confirmation hearing held the following week was akin to a war zone.
It was because Yi Chan-ho's past from ten years ago, as the first nominee up, had been far too strange.
Having left the political world, he had lived for years without a decent job, yet somehow he had a fine house and was even supporting his children's studies in America, as if he had landed some high-paying part-time gig.
“...Yes, I suppose I was lucky.”
But it did not become a major problem.
Because although Yi Chan-ho's past from ten years ago was strange, his financial records for the recent three years were sufficiently explainable.
He had experience working as a legal counsel for several global consulting firms over the past year, and looking at the annual salary received from them, his house, car, restaurant, and children's studies abroad could all be somehow explained.
This was all thanks to the Changcheong Fund running around with sweat-soaked feet to issue certificates of employment.
“Congratulations, Prime Minister Yi. I can finally call you prime minister with a light heart.”
“I apologize for causing you concern, Mr. President. Due to a needless misunderstanding...”
“It's fine. I am not someone who digs into people's pasts so persistently. Please focus solely on state affairs from now on.”
On the day of the prime minister appointment ceremony.
Gim Sang-cheol celebrated his appointment more than anyone.
It was a fortunate thing. All presidents who had received overwhelming approval ratings had seen their ratings crash starting from appointment issues.
Therefore, he too had always been anxious whenever an expose came from the opposition party, but fortunately, the appointments had passed without incident.
“It seems the first button has been sewn well, so my mind is at ease. Above all, the head of our cabinet has finally been appointed as my person.”
Now he no longer had to engage in nerve wars with the ministers at every cabinet meeting. Having crossed the biggest mountain among the appointments, the prime minister nomination, the other ministers would soon be replaced as well.
“By the way, Prime Minister Yi. I have something I wish to discuss urgently.”
“Yes, please speak.”
“It's about my signature campaign promise, the livelihood support fund. I want to distribute it within the year if possible, but the Bank of Korea and the Ministry of Economy and Fiscal Planning keep picking fights.”
“One could excuse the Bank of Korea as an independent institution... but the Planning and Budget?”
“Yes. No matter how I look at it, they don't seem to have kicked their old Ministry of Economy and Finance habits.”
“The public service discipline is truly a mess thanks to the previous administration... Once the appointments are wrapped up, I'll scold them from behind the scenes.”
Gim Sang-cheol's mood improved.
Cabinet meetings had always been nerve wars with the ministers, but conversing with a friend who understood him so well seemed to clear his head.
“Ah, and one more thing.”
“Yes, please speak.”
“What is the recent atmosphere inside and outside the party?”
“...The party?”
“I mean, all the state policy planning reports coming up from the party these days are about autonomous cars, no?”
“...”
“I can accommodate things like R&D support and startup support. But they keep throwing tantrums, asking me to loosen regulations.”
“...”
“Prime Minister, read this report too. In short, they're asking us to ban the Tada Prohibition Act again—have our lawmakers already forgotten how vicious the taxi industry is?”
Yi Chan-ho gauged the mood and spoke.
“Boss... actually, there is some sense to that.”
“Sense?”
“Yes... Of course, our lawmakers aren't saying this because they don't know how vicious the taxi industry is. However, there is an assessment that Korean automotive technology has recently fallen too far behind the G2.”
“Well then, isn't it enough to grant operating permits in a few places in downtown Seoul?”
“Support of merely that level feels somewhat insufficient. In fact, looking at the predictions of global rating agencies and G2 cases, autonomous vehicle services are increasing rapidly. In that sense, there is much concern that we, too, should gradually prepare for the era of unmanned vehicles...”
It was an era where even ice cream was sold unmanned. Autonomous driving for cars had now become an irresistible trend.
“Then what do you expect me to do? The taxi industry is so obstinate—what can I do about it?”
“Actually, there is one good stratagem, but...”
“A stratagem? What is it? Speak quickly.”
Yi Chan-ho hesitated before speaking.
“How about slightly reducing the livelihood support fund?”
“What? The livelihood fund?”
“Yes. The reason the taxi industry is so obstinate is ultimately because their retirement funds are tied up in it. In Seoul, a taxi license costs about 100 million won.”
“So?”
“...What if the government purchases these individual licenses?”
Gim Sang-cheol's face hardened coldly. The livelihood support fund was a campaign promise like his very identity—a sore spot no one was allowed to touch.
“Why would you say such a thing?”
“Boss, that's not...”
“The prime minister closest to me shouldn't be unaware of the words I hate most.”
“...”
“I believe there must be a clear reason you brought up such words before me. It won't be simply because you took a few pennies, right? Speak the reason candidly.”
The prime minister gauged Gim Sang-cheol's cold gaze.
He had already crossed a bridge he could not return from to make excuses. Now he had to present a rational reason.
“The atmosphere within the party is unusual.”
He spoke sincerely.
“Hasn't every kind of petition—amnesty, reinstatement—already been thrust at an administration barely a month old? And those are people more uncomfortable than the opposition party.”
“Hmph.”
“The lawmakers bowing their heads now? Each one hides a hundred-year-old serpent inside. In the general election four years from now, if we don't have nomination rights, those 190 seats will be the ones to stab us in the back.”
“Then shouldn't we be even more careful? What I need most is a popular policy, no?”
“But the people are not endlessly foolish. We've seen how the ruling party handed over power to the opposition in just five years.”
“Then what the hell do you expect me to do...”
“We must adjust the scale. We need to implement at least one policy for the future to gain trust.”
Gim Sang-cheol was suddenly flooded with irritation.
“And that amounts to just taxis? I know what I need to know. Aren't there 160,000 individual taxi operators right now? If the government buys all these licenses, we'll need roughly 16 trillion won in budget—how do you allocate that? And between you and me, this is basically key money, isn't it? If we guarantee this, does the state have to guarantee every store's key money too? There's no end to it!”
“...Of course, we cannot buy them all at full price. I think bargaining with the operators will be our administration's first test.”
“Damn it!”
“...Boss. Forgive me, but how about slightly lowering the livelihood support fund?”
The prime minister continued, gauging the mood.
“Recipients and the near-poor class at 300,000 won, but the middle class at about 30,000 won...”