Lee Myung Bak’s reorganisation of the government bill passed in the National Assembly on Friday (here) and was approved by the Cabinet Saturday. After he is sworn in as the 10th President of the Republic of Korea, his 15 minister nominees will face fierce questioning in Parliament on Wednesday and Thursday. Lee Myung-bak is probably chief violater of public norms, but as he is to be sworn in as President he should have the decency to back those whom he has nominated, faulty or not.
Top of the list of criticism is the riches enjoyed by the group of 15, with average assets of nearly 4 bill. won (US$4.2 mill.) or 58.7 bill. won between them (here). Real estate, tax evation, academic plagiarism is at the hear of the matter – at least on the surface. The real issue is the upcoming election for the national assemby in April.
Criticism has already demanded its first victory/prey as Lee Choon-ho, nominated as minister for gender equality and family, has withdrawn her nomination as it became known that she owns 40 (or 36) properties in 12 different cities (here and here).
Nominated as the unification minister, Nam Joo-hong is targeted because of his hardline old-school views on North Korea, and having a son with a U.S. citizenship, a wife and daughter with residency status greatly eases the job for the critics. That his son has chosen to enlist next month, and his wife has given up her residency rights, will do no good.
Park Mi-seok, senior presidential secretary for social policy, is accused of plagiarism while being a professor at the Sookmyung Women’s University (here).
Han Seung-soo, prime minister to be, is also criticised for various speculative real estate deals, tax evations, and for one time having claimed to be a Cambridge faculty member (while actually having been a research fellow, here).
Lee Myung-bak is even receiving criticism from his own party as GNP chairman Kang Jae-sup (rightly) believes negative public opinion may hurt in the April 9. parliamentary election. So far military evasion by family members and academic plagiarism have been sure disqualifiers, but Lee Myung-bak has himself proved that real estate speculation and tax evasion may not necessarily be. Luckily no one questions his 39 appointed secretaries (here) or support staff (here) … yet…
Tags: Cabinet nominees, Han Seung-soo, Kang Jae-sup, Lee Choon-ho, Lee Myung-bak, Nam Joo-hong, National Assembly elections, Park Mi-seok
Monday, February 25, 2008, 2:16am at 2:16 am
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Eric Hundin