President Lee Jae-myung and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi performing a drum ensemble [Photo: Captured from Lee Jae-myung's SNS]

The success or failure of national governance is not determined by the number of policies implemented. 

True competence in governance lies in how conflicting policies are aligned, the criteria used to establish priorities, and who takes responsibility for those choices. 

These high-level functions are the mandate of the Presidential Office and the Prime Minister's Office.

Looking at the policy management of the Lee Jae-myung administration, one is confronted with a more fundamental question before even examining the merits of individual policies. 

That question is whether the authority and responsibility to coordinate policy actually functioned at all. 

The costs incurred when coordination fails are not abstract. The price of confusion and uncertainty is borne by the public in their daily lives.

Policies regarding real estate, welfare, labor, and finance were pursued simultaneously, yet there was no clear signal that these policies were aligned in a singular direction. 

Conflicts repeatedly surfaced between housing stability and household debt management, the expansion of welfare and fiscal sustainability, and labor protections and industrial competitiveness. 

The result was not a debate between policies, but a direct blow to the public’s livelihood in the form of housing instability, financial burdens on households, and stagnant corporate investment.

At this point, the responsibility cannot lie with individual ministries. Ministries are merely units for policy design and implementation; they lack the authority to reconcile conflicts between policies or determine the overall priorities of the nation. 

That authority and responsibility are vested in the Presidential Office and the Prime Minister's Office under the Constitution and the Government Organization Act.

The policy timetable, too, lacked coordination. 

Policies with short-term, visible effects were introduced rapidly, while management plans for medium- to long-term costs and fiscal burdens failed to follow. 

This demonstrates that policy responded more sensitively to the timing of politics than to the requirements of administration. 

As a result, uncertainty became prolonged, and the public was left in a position where it was difficult to plan for the future in the face of policies that could change at any moment.

The responsibility of the Prime Minister's Office is no less significant. 

The Prime Minister's Office is the control tower responsible for coordinating inter-ministerial policy conflicts in advance and translating the President’s governance direction into an executable structure. 

If, despite this, there were repeated instances of confusion in policy messaging, redundancy, and buck-passing, it signifies that the coordination function of the Prime Minister's Office was not effectively operational. 

The vacuum left by failed coordination is ultimately passed on as costs to be borne by the public on the ground.

The absence of a coordination function is also evident in the response following policy failures. 

While the causes of failure were blamed on external variables, the market, or the previous administration, it is difficult to find evidence that those failures were systematically reflected in the design of subsequent policies. 

Meanwhile, the costs of policy experimentation and correction continue to accumulate, ultimately becoming a burden on the public.

In the end, the core of the problem is clear. 

The Lee Jae-myung administration was proactive in creating policies, but it failed to effectively operate the central mechanisms of national governance needed to coordinate them. 

Within that vacuum, policies multiplied, and the direction of state affairs became blurred. 

And the costs of that uncertainty and confusion were shifted onto the people.

National governance is a matter of structure, not just messaging. 

When the structure fails to function, it is always the people who suffer. 

State affairs without coordination can no longer be left unaddressed. 

For the Presidential Office and the Prime Minister's Office to stand again as the center of coordination, there must be clear political accountability for coordination failures, followed by personnel reforms that reflect that responsibility. 

That is the minimum starting point for restoring the collapsed function of national coordination and reducing the burden on the public.