Lee calls for constitutional revision over election commission crisis, vows crackdown on Jamsil violence

President Lee Jae-myung said Thursday that constitutional revision should be actively considered in response to the National Election Commission's ballot shortage crisis, acknowledging that practical constraints — including limits on presidential authority — leave the government with little room to act through ordinary means.

Speaking at a senior secretaries meeting he chaired at Cheong Wa Dae that afternoon, Lee described the crisis as the product of the election commission's "collective incompetence, negligence and moral hazard" — an institution that had pursued its own organizational interests with authority delegated by the sovereign people while abandoning its responsibilities.

Lee said the government must move quickly to conduct a thorough investigation and push through sweeping legislative reforms aimed at dismantling and rebuilding the existing election management system from the ground up.

Lee also addressed the ongoing protests near the Jamsil vote-counting center that have continued since election day. "A firm response is unavoidable to the violent situation around the Jamsil counting center, which has already reached an intolerable limit," he said.

He said peaceful assemblies aimed at restoring popular sovereignty must be fully protected, but warned that illegal violence and disinformation riding on those protests would be pursued to the end and those responsible held accountable. Only then, he said, could the freedoms of assembly and political participation — and the legitimate demands of citizens seeking to reclaim their voting rights — be properly expressed.

Lee urged the political establishment not to ride the wave of illegal violence and stoke social disorder, calling instead on all sides to unite behind a thorough investigation and fundamental reform of election administration.

Lee also named inflation as the top priority in the wake of the end of the Middle East war. "We must treat this not as the end but as the beginning, and devote all our energy to restoring the livelihoods economy and addressing the shortcomings of our industrial economy," he said. The most urgent task at hand was prices, he added — "first, second and always prices."

Lee directed officials to keep measures in place to normalize fuel prices and ease consumer energy costs until international oil price volatility has clearly settled, and to find extraordinary measures beyond existing frameworks to stabilize supply and prices for key staples such as eggs, vegetables, fruit and meat.

He warned against complacency, saying the moment a crisis appears to have passed is precisely when bolder and more precise action is needed. "Just as trying to save a bucket of water after the flames seem under control can land you in far greater trouble, Cheong Wa Dae and the government alike must mobilize every available tool with the resolve to stake everything on price stability and livelihood recovery," he said.