Do we like them?Do we like Kim Min-seok?
Our score: 5 out of 10. No campaign against any group turned up, but his record on LGBTQ+ issues is a blank and his temper in party fights is on the record.
His past isn't squeaky clean. He has faced political-funds cases going back to 2002, and ahead of his 2025 confirmation said he had paid all fines and additional charges. He now tells it as a targeted prosecution by a group of prosecutors including Yoon Suk Yeol and Han Dong-hoon, which is his account, not a court finding.
The latest stoush is a bad look. At a party event in August he said the party would not allow a 'female Chun Doo-hwan or a female Hitler' to set foot in the country, aimed at People Power Party lawmaker Lee Jin-suk after a forum on the 1980 Gwangju uprising. She filed an insult complaint with police on 24 August, calling it a malicious personal attack; his party spokesman rejected the complaint and said she should resign instead. Where you land depends on whether you read it as fair fury about a forum that upset many people or as name-calling at a woman politician.
On the harm check, honestly, there's a gap. Searches turned up no anti-LGBTQ+, anti-migrant or climate-denial words from him, and nothing about his stance on an anti-discrimination law. In his corner, his government colleague the gender equality minister backed that law, but that's her record, not his. He has also been pressed over missing the December 2024 martial law repeal vote, which he rejects, and has released Assembly footage to make his case.
The good stuff is a long public career. He has lived through the exile and the political fights of his generation and was credited in coverage with steering the post-martial law recovery as PM. We couldn't open enough pages to say more about charity or kindness, so that's the honest limit.
Verdict: a middle-of-the-road seven-year-old grudge-keeper with no obvious harm on file. He doesn't fail anything, but this isn't a mate we'd hang the rainbow flag on until he says where he stands on equality law.