Humility is the attitude of power standing before citizens' questions. An empty podium and a stopped camera symbolize politics and media that have lost their questions. [Photo=Hanmi Ilbo Composite]

Humility is not a tone of voice. It is not a posture of bowing one's head. Humility is the ability to apply the same standards to oneself. It is the courage to apply the standards demanded of others to one's own side. It is the attitude of being able to withstand the yardstick used to criticize power, even when one holds power.

Therefore, humility is not the conduct of the weak, but the ethics of the strong.

However, there are forces in the political arena today that reject this humility.

Candidates without reflection desire power, the media, reduced to trumpeters, have abandoned questions, and the addicted factions have forgotten shame. When these combine, elections become not a field of verification, but a conduit for power reproduction.

Every politician has flaws, and incumbent local government heads are subject to more evaluation and criticism. However, an election is not a process of finding flawless individuals. It is a process of distinguishing between more verified and more dangerous people. If they are lacking, the voters can judge them with their votes. That is what an election is.

The problem is the verification risk of the candidates.

Jeong Yeon-oh, a candidate from the Democratic Party in Seoul, is not a candidate burdened only by controversy over his policy pledges.

During his tenure as Seongdong-gu mayor, a controversy known as the 'Cancun trip' arose, alleging that the gender of a fellow public official was misrepresented during a business trip to Mexico. Some Seongdong-gu residents filed a resident audit request with the Seoul Metropolitan Government. The requesters demanded an audit into the background of the trip and the circumstances of the gender misstatement.

Candidate Jeong's side has explained that it was an official trip based on a formal invitation, that Cancun was a transit point for air travel, and that the gender notation was a simple mistake.

However, in the verification of public office candidates, what is important is not just the existence of an explanation. It must also explain why such a record was left and why it invited such suspicion.

In addition, there is the controversy over the donation of a shamanistic shrine and a child spirit shrine during the redevelopment of Seongdong-gu.

Oh Se-hoon's side raised suspicions about the donation of a shamanistic shrine worth 4.8 billion won during Jeong's tenure as Seongdong-gu mayor, claiming that the financial department's opinion on donation and the approval conditions were reflected in the documents related to the Haengdang District 7 redevelopment project.

On the other hand, Seongdong-gu countered that the donation was a procedural guide for general facilities such as roads and parks and was unrelated to the shamanistic shrine.

The truth requires further verification.

However, the mere fact that such controversies are repeated for a candidate aspiring to be the mayor of Seoul is not trivial. What public office candidates need is not a technique to avoid suspicion, but an attitude to confront and explain suspicions directly.

The dispute surrounding the Yongsan development pledge is in the same vein. Candidate Jeong Yeon-oh criticized Oh Se-hoon's development approach regarding the Yongsan International Business District development, while Oh Se-hoon's side countered by blaming the Democratic Party government for the delay in the Yongsan development.

Policy debates are a normal part of an election. However, if a candidate leaves the impression that they cannot directly, sufficiently, and responsibly explain the core of their own pledges, it is not simply a matter of election tactics.

Pledges are not promotional materials, but documents of responsibility. A pledge that a candidate cannot explain themselves is unlikely to become a promise to take responsibility for the citizens' lives.

The controversy surrounding candidate Jeon Jae-soo of the Democratic Party in Busan is even more serious.

Although the charges of bribery and violation of the Political Funds Act against candidate Jeon himself were dismissed due to the statute of limitations or insufficient evidence, four of his aides during his tenure as a member of the National Assembly were prosecuted without detention on charges of destroying evidence, such as damaging PC storage devices before the search and seizure.

According to reports, the indictment does not specify whether they reported to candidate Jeon. This is a point that cannot be legally determined. However, political questions remain that cannot be ignored.

Why did the suspicions surrounding the candidate only culminate in the indictment of his aides? Even if the candidate's personal responsibility cannot be legally determined, the political questions remaining for a public office candidate do not disappear. Legal non-prosecution is not political absolution.

What public office candidates need is not "not being punished," but "the qualification to bear public responsibility."

Why do such individuals run for public office again? The reason is simple. Calculation precedes shame.

Even if they cannot properly explain their pledges, they become candidates by relying on their faction. Even if the responsibility for suspicions surrounding them is attributed to those around them, they believe it is enough to avoid legal responsibility themselves. This political stance has become entrenched.

These are not politicians who cannot reflect, but politicians who have learned that not reflecting is more advantageous.

Now, they have begun to portray themselves as if they have been saved.

They say they have endured attacks, overcome investigations, and been chosen by their faction, thus qualifying them to hold public office again. However, salvation in politics does not come from a faction. One must pass the voters' scrutiny.

What citizens need is not testimony, but verification.

The problem of the media also begins here.

The moment the media becomes a mouthpiece for power, reporters abandon questions. If reporters abandon questions, what remains are only propaganda pieces in the format of articles.

When the media, which should make those in power uncomfortable, starts to speak on behalf of power, the public does not gain information; they are injected with governance.

When the media transforms into something like the Korean Central News Agency, reporters are no longer reporters. They become megaphones conveying the words of power to the people, rather than those who question power.

Dictatorship begins with surveillance, but long-lasting rule is completed by addiction.

Surveillance intimidates citizens. It examines who said what, who stood on which side, and who did not agree with the language of power. However, surveillance alone cannot sustain long-term rule.

Long-lasting rule addicts citizens. It addicts them to anger, to a sense of victimhood, and to the habit of seeing the opponent as a demon.

At that point, citizens no longer remain silent because they are being watched. They stop making their own judgments and become defenders of power themselves.

Supporters, who are called factions, also have morality. However, that morality does not operate on universal standards. They make excuses for their side's wrongdoings and use language of condemnation for the opponent's wrongdoings.

The same suspicion becomes a political attack if it is from their side, but a disqualification for public office if it is from the opponent's side. This is not a lack of morality, but a state where morality is used only as a weapon of the faction.

Supporters of factional politics have not abandoned morality. They have learned to use morality as a shield for their side and a club against the opponent.

Do the people who support them not know that they are like frogs in boiling water?

If the water had been hot from the beginning, anyone would have jumped out. However, the water was heated little by little. Suspicions became political attacks, incompetence became mistakes, and evasion of responsibility became a narrative of enduring oppression.

As the temperature of morality gradually rose, supporters no longer perceived the danger as danger.

Factions do not persuade their supporters. They make them gradually accustomed to it.

An election is a place where a candidate faces the people and receives judgment.

The appropriateness of a party leader can be a subject of criticism. However, this should not lead to the refusal of candidate registration or the disruption of the election. If voters do not like a candidate, they can judge them. If voters do not like a political party, they can correct it with their votes.

However, if a candidate refuses to stand before the people themselves, it is not criticism but a base judgment that holds the citizens hostage.

More dangerous than a shameless candidate is a society that has become accustomed to that shamelessness.

When candidates without reflection demand power, the media, turned into trumpeters, abandon questions, and addicted factions forget shame, politics becomes not a system to protect citizens' lives but a recycling mechanism for power.

There is only one thing for voters to do.

It is to ask before applauding. Have they reflected? Have they explained? Have they taken responsibility?

When local power is entrusted to forces that reject humility, citizens board a bullet taxi without brakes, not knowing the destination. And when that car does not stop, the first ones to get hurt are not those in power, but the citizens.