hankyoreh

on the occasion of the 64th anniversary of the war’s beginning

By Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent

With three nominees for prime minister stepping aside before even before their confirmation hearings during the first year and a half of Park Geun-hye’s presidency, there are more calls for a complete overhaul of the Blue House’s appointment system. Improvements must be made not only in vetting nominees, but also in recommending candidates and managing the talent pool, they say. The frontrunners for leadership of the ruling Saenuri Party (NFP), which plays a crucial role in running the government, are calling for immediate reforms in the appointment system, including the setting up of an independent appointment board.

The aspect of the current administration’s appointment process regarded as the biggest problem is its opacity. Even inside the Blue House, few people know who recommends the candidates for senior government positions and what discussions result in the decision of the final nominee. This also happens to be the origin of all the sarcastic terms used to attack President Park’s appointment style, including “on-my-own appointments” and “notebook appointments.”

No attempt has been made to maintain any of the systems used in previous administrations, such as the Korean Civil Service Commission, the senior secretary in charge of personnel appointments, and the appointment planning office. As a result, the Blue House appointment committee, which only includes the Blue House chief of staff and a few senior secretaries, has been degraded to a body that rubber stamps decisions made by Park. In other words, it is a system that is doomed to result in inadequate vetting of nominees.

Politicians are suggesting that, even before reforming the appointment system, changes need to be made to Park’s appointment style, as she has the ultimate authority for making appointments. Otherwise, they say, we could witness a fourth or even fifth nominee for prime minister having to step aside. The suggestion is that, since the appointment system will inevitably reflect the appointment philosophy of the president, the priority should be on convincing Park to change.

In fact, after the sexual harassment scandal in May 2013 involving former Blue House spokesperson Yoon Chang-jung, Park promised to find a way to strengthen the appointment system and change to a system of gradually reviewing material and vetting possible appointments on an ongoing basis. But today, a year later, little seems to have changed.

The areas that Park will need to focus on correcting in the future are improving her sensitivity to public opinion and expanding the pool of talent, observers suggest. After Ahn Dae-hee withdrew his nomination as prime minister, Park brushed aside proposals from inside the ruling party to appoint a more inclusive politician, instead choosing Moon Chang-geuk, a figure from the far-right. In this appointment, Park did not even consider embracing her political opposition party and other critics, nor did she manage to predict how the public would respond to the nomination.

This was true not only in the case for Moon, but also for Ahn Dae-hee and Kim Jeong-hoon, who withdrew his nomination for Minister of Science, ICT, and Future Planning in 2013. Park failed to predict how the average Korean would feel about the massive legal fees Ahn Dae-hee was raking in, or the fact that Kim Jeong-hoon had dual citizenship.

The examples of Kim Kyung-kwan, nominee for Defense Minister, and Han Man-soo, nominee for chair of the Fair Trade Commission, who had to cancel their bids for office under allegations of consulting for arms dealers, providing legal counsel for multinational firms, and dodging taxes, are not unlike the currently controversial nomination of Kim Myung-soo for Education Minister. Park must have overlooked the fact that the public would not be pleased to learn that the person placed in charge of education has a checkered history in the field, including plagiarism of academic papers.

Ruling party politicians argue that, for Park to become more sympathetic to public opinion, she will need to greatly expand the pool of talent - currently limited to her acquaintances, former colleagues, and members of her faction - and to have advisors who will be bold enough to make this kind of suggestion.

“The reason that members of the ruling party are calling for Blue House Chief of Staff Kim Ki-choon to be sacked is not because he has abused his authority. Rather, it is because an advisor who uncritically obeys and carries out all of Park’s instructions could ultimately lead her to ruin,” said a first-term Saenuri Party lawmaker, on condition of anonymity.

“Park needs to pay attention to the fact that ahead of the Saenuri Party convention, the prevailing mood among members is to elect someone as party head who can tell it like it is,” the lawmaker said.

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