Prime Minister Kim Min-seok took the floor as a respondent during the first interpellation session of the Lee Jae-myung administration on September 15, presenting his views on a range of issues. Back in April, he had participated in the same session as an opposition lawmaker, but this time he returned just five months later as the incumbent prime minister. On the possibility of running in next June’s local elections, he drew a clear line, saying, “I have no such plans.”

During the political affairs session, lawmaker Lim Yi-ja of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) asked whether Kim would run in the upcoming local elections. He replied, “I have no plans. Why would you ask that?” Kim is widely considered one of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK)’s leading potential candidates for Seoul mayor.

On the matter of former President Yoon Suk-yeol’s martial law declaration on December 3 of last year, Kim gave firm answers. When DPK lawmaker Park Sung-joon asked, “Where would you be if the coup had succeeded?” Kim responded, “I don’t think I would have survived.”

Asked by PPP lawmaker Shin Sung-bum whether he still believed the insurgency was ongoing, Kim said, “The true conclusion of the insurgency should come only when the full truth is revealed and those responsible are held accountable.” As an opposition lawmaker in August last year, Kim had been the first to raise the possibility that then President Yoon might declare martial law.

In response to PPP lawmakers criticizing the ruling party’s ongoing prosecutorial reform as a “dismantling of democracy,” Kim retorted: “I fail to see how prosecutorial reform, calling for special courts to try insurrection cases, or adding Supreme Court justices, as the opposition claims, has anything to do with suppressing democracy.” When told that the government was “forcing through” special counsel investigations, Kim countered, “If the Yoon administration had not exercised vetoes on special counsel investigation bills, these matters would already have been resolved.”

The session also touched on controversies surrounding Kim personally. When lawmaker Lim mentioned his involvement in the 1985 sit-in at the U.S. Cultural Center and the 1989 occupation of the U.S. Embassy, Kim replied, “I wonder what relevance it has to raise those past events here in the National Assembly.”

PPP lawmaker Kwak Gyu-taek took aim at Kim’s explanation during his confirmation hearing that he had “funded his son’s overseas education through investments in cabbage farming.” “I hope you’ll pay as much attention to household grocery prices as you did to your own cabbage farming,” Kwak said. Kim responded, “I don’t think it is appropriate to trivialize national affairs by linking them disparagingly to personal matters.”