Lee Myung-bak’s nominees faces tough criticism

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has already demanded its first victory/prey as Lee Choon-ho, nominated as minister for gender equality and family, has withdrawn her nomination as it became known that she owns 40 (or 36) properties in 12 different cities (here and here).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…

The Minister of Obstruction

In an editorial by The Hankyoreh (Feb. 19, 2008), the new Minister for Foreign Affairs and Unification, Prof. Nam Joo-hong, is referred to as the Unification Ministry’s Minister of Obstruction” on account of his school-of-collapse and regime-change views.

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Looking at what Nam Joo-hong, the Kyonggi University professor who has been chosen to head the Unification Ministry, has said about North Korea until now, you can see how wrong the new government is about the issue of relations with North Korea. When President-elect Lee Myung-bak appoints a scholar so ultra-right that it would have had a hard time putting him to use even in the Cold War era, it’s enough to make you wonder whether the motive is to heighten tensions. There has never been anything like this in the history of the Unification Ministry.

Nam is your typical member of the “school of collapse.” He has consistently claimed that there are signs that a sudden situation could arise in the North, saying that it has problems in five major areas, including food, energy and succession. Immediately after the February 13 agreement was made, he said that the crisis management ability of the leadership in Pyongyang was reaching a breaking point. Naturally this leads to the position that Seoul should participate in the Proliferation Security Initiative, or PSI, and put pressure on Pyongyang in the form of economic sanctions. His thinking is the same as that of the neocons who led the North Korea policy of the Bush administration before it turned out to be a failure.

Nam sees the solution to the North Korean nuclear issue to be regime change, instead of multilateral dialogue like the six-party talks. His reason is that it is too late for the North to give up its nuclear cards, so it is inevitable that the issue becomes a prolonged one. He reduces the February 13 agreement to a political deal between Pyongyang and Washington to earn time. Put simply, he thinks the collapse of the system in North Korea is what has to happen for the nuclear issue to be resolved. He cites a stronger U.S.-Korea alliance as the only alternative, so as to be prepared for such a sudden change of events.

Similarly, Nam argues that developing inter-Korean relations is something that should happen only after the nuclear issue is out of the way. This is the same as saying that relations can improve if the North collapses. He does not even hesitate to say that the June 15 summit declaration is a “North Korean document used for controlling the South” and that the engagement policy needs to be completely reconsidered. It is easy to see what will happen to inter-Korean relations, difficult as it has been to make them what they are today, if someone such as this becomes the minister of unification.

Even before settling on Nam, President-elect Lee was being criticized for only looking after the alliance with the United States while neglecting inter-Korean relations and the question of the Korean Peninsula. Having a “minister of obstruction of unification” like Nam be around in such a situation will cause Lee’s administration to be criticized for having an anti-reunification stance. Neglecting to work for peace and reunification goes against the constitution and smothers the Korean people’s desire for unification. We hope to see the new administration get started on the right foot. As the saying goes, “Choosing the right people is everything” (insaga mansa).

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