By Kim Ji-soo
Culture Editor
The pouring rain has washed away the city's dirt and gloom and the sun pierces through the gray buildings with an intensity foretelling of the oncoming summer heat.
The lull in the rain is a respite, just like the city's cleanliness. But another respite also came with the stoppage of the rain. President Lee Myung-bak's nominee for the nation's top prosecutor job, the prosecutor-general, on Tuesday offered to withdraw his nomination.
The 52-year-old nominee, Chun Sung-gwan, had been touted as sign of reform that the President hoped to bring to the prosecution. By bringing in a relatively young senior prosecutor to lead, he hoped to reinvigorate the prosecution.
And accordingly, eight of the senior prosecutors, including the deputy prosecutor-general and heads of district high prosecutors' offices, resigned to pave the way for the younger boss.
Then, on Monday, at the parliamentary hearings, lawmakers grilled him about his dubious dealings with a billionaire in acquiring a posh apartment in southern Seoul in April; false registration of a residence so that his children could attend grammar schools with outstanding records for college administration; his golf trip; his wife's lavish spending, such as the purchase of a handbag worth a few thousand dollars at a duty free shop; and his son's expensive wedding. Chun had explanations for almost all of the questions raised, except one.
He admitted to the false registration of his residence and apologized, while he acknowledged that the purchase of the apartment might have been inappropriate. But he said he didn't remember the 2004 golf trip with his sponsor to Japan, which later turned out to be false and finally caused the President to accept the nominee's withdrawal.
Chun is not the first public-office nominee to step aside because of ambiguous financial dealings or an inappropriate way of life. Earlier in President Lee's administration, the President's nominee for unification minister, Nam Ju-hong, environment minister, Park Eun-kyung, and gender equality minister, Lee Choon-ho, had to withdraw their nominations over dubious tax exemptions and real estate dealings or ``questionable wealth accumulation.''
But his departure is disconcerting because he is a relatively young public figure, someone from whom the younger Korean public perhaps expected something different. It's widely, although not publicly, known that senior prosecutors have had close relations with financially powerful figures in the past. Sadly, it really isn't the sole domain of the prosecution. Ambitious businessmen have sought close relations with those in power. But people had hoped that that was the way of the past.
He is also a prosecutor, an office calling for a higher sense of justice and fidelity to the judicial process. Chun's withdrawal poses yet another challenge for the prosecution, which has been viewed with skepticism after the investigation of the late former President Roh Moo-hyun and his suicide.
The Lee administration, too, faces yet another challenge of having to find a prosecutor-general nominee that is able to pass through the ethical screening of the parliament and the public. The administration has already been criticized for its inappropriate screening of the nominee.
As we wait for a new nominee, it's hard to shake off a sense of wariness about what possible allegations might rise out of whoever is chosen. Will more of the rain, expected to pour in buckets in the days ahead, wash it away?