hankyoreh

May 19. (Cheong Wa Dae photo pool)

By Kim Jong-cheol, Senior Staff Writer　

The revelation that Minister of Environment nominee Yoo Young-sook began attending Somang Presbyterian Church in May 2008, just as after the Lee Myung-bak administration took office, is prompting charges that this was “church connection” with the aim of landing a senior position.

Yoo previously attended a church near her home in Seoul’s Junggye neighborhood before she and her husband began to attend the church in the Sinsa neighborhood of Gangnam in May 2008. Around two months before being tapped as a ministerial candidate, Yoo moved once again in March 2011 to a church near her home in the Mia neighborhood of Gangbuk District.

In explanatory documents submitted Thursday, Yoo wrote, “I did not go to Somang Church after President Lee took office. My husband began attending Somang Church, where his family had been going since long before, when he was recruited by the SK Group in May 2008.”

Regarding Yoo’s argument, Democratic Party Lawmaker Hong Young-pyo said that Yoo “bears no connection with the post of Minister of Environment in terms of qualifications, capabilities, or expertise, or anything other than her having attended Somang Church.”

“When she switched churches again two months ago, this presumably meant she had done her preliminary arrangements ahead of her Cabinet nomination,” Hong added.

In addition to Yoo, Minister of Government Legislation Jeong Sun-tae can be cited as a prominent case of a figure successfully landing a senior position after transferring to Somang Presbyterian Church. At the time of a September 2005 parliamentary audit during his time as first deputy chief prosecutor with the Daegu District Prosecutors’s Office, Jeong’s road to advancement was effectively cut off, as he suffered a demotion for verbally abusing a female bartender while treating lawmakers in the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee to drinks.

But Jeong, who began attending Somang Presbyterian Church in August 2004, over one year before the incident, told employees of the Ministry of Government Legislation that he was close with current KDB Holding Group Chairman Kang Man-soo, a prominent member of the church’s congregation. Perhaps because of this, Jeong was subsequently named head of a legislative revision task force in the judicial affairs and administration subcommittee of Lee Myung-bak’s presidential transition committee and a legal system advancement team for the Presidential Council on National Competitiveness, then chaired by Kang, before being appointed to his current position in August 2010.

The story is similar for Korea Tourism Organization President Lee Charm. The German-born Lee converted to Protestant Christianity from the Unification Church and began attending Somang Presbyterian Church in January 2008. Afterwards, he served as the culture and tourism subcommittee of the Presidential Council on National Branding (PCNB) before his appointment as KTO president in July 2009.

President Lee Myung-bak was appointed as an elder at Somang Presbyterian Church in November 1995, while First Lady Kim Yoon-ok is a deaconess there. The president’s older brother, Grand National Party (GNP) lawmaker and top administration heavyweight Lee Sang-deuk, also served as an elder. So many figures from the church ascended to senior positions early in the administration, including Transition Committee Chairwoman Lee Kyung-sook, earliest Minister of Strategy and Finance Kang Man-soo, and Senior Secretary for Social Policy Park Mi-seok, that it led observers to coin the term “Ko So Young Cabinet.”

Ko So-young is a famous South Korean actress, but the phrase is also a play on the words ko, for the president’s alma mater Korea University, so, the church he attends, and young, Yongnam Province, where President Lee received strong voter support in his last election.

Despite a period after the 2008 candlelight demonstrations over U.S. beef imports when the administration appeared to exercise some restraint on appointing senior officials from the church, a number of less prominent figures also hail from there, including former KORAIL president and current DAS president Kang Kyung-ho, former Defense Acquisition Program Agency Commissioner Chang Soo-man, and current PCNB Chairwoman Lee Bae-yong.

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