There are, however, questions over whether Monday’s meeting will be able to make any breakthroughs to unlock the stalemate in government. Lee’s Democratic Party (DP) is firmly in control of parliament, hamstringing Yoon’s ability to pass legislation.
In a sign of the political wrangling to get an upper hand, aides to Yoon and Lee struggled to agree on the time and agenda for their meeting for more than a week before Lee proposed to sit down with no preconditions or set agenda.
Lee has called for a one-time allowance of 250,000 won (US$182) for all South Koreans to help cope with inflation, but PPP has called it the kind of populist policy that would make the situation worse and cost 13 trillion won for the government budget.