President-elect Park Geun-hye announced members of her transition committee Thursday in the first step toward forming a government and setting up a framework for the new administration.
Former Constitutional Court chief Kim Yong-jun was named to lead the team. He is expected to back Park’s firm belief in the rule of law and make preparations for the incoming administration to smoothly take over. Rep. Jin Young of the ruling Saenuri Party, one of Park’s aides, was appointed as deputy chief of the transition team and he will oversee the team’s day-to-day operations.
Drawing our attention is the creation of the two new subcommittees ― one on national unity and the other on youth affairs ― part of Park’s apparent efforts to ease regional and generational conflicts that were prevalent within the electorate before the presidential poll. Former lawmaker Han Kwang-ok, who hails from the opposition stronghold of the Jeolla Provinces and joined Park’s campaign weeks before the election, was named to head the national unity subcommittee and Kim Kyung-jae, another Jeolla region politician, was selected as Han’s deputy.
The public appraisal of the transition team is positive as a whole, although the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) underestimates it as a ``revolving-door appointment.’’ But it’s encouraging that the President-elect almost ruled out her political cronies or confidants and had figures from the Jeolla and Chungcheong regions included in the team in accordance with her strong commitment to national integration.
This must be a lesson from the fiasco in personnel management suffered by the incumbent administration throughout its five-year term. It’s also meaningful that the transition team will be headed by a figure who overcame his personal ordeal of polio to rise to fame in the nation’s judiciary community.
It is true that the transition team lacks capable new faces and leaves a lot to be desired but this is understandable, given the difficulties in recruiting the right people. In this regard, it would have been better if Park had taken pains to pick one of her prominent adversaries as head of the national unity subcommittee.
Most worrisome is the possibility of grave blunders in the process of appointments resulting from the hush-hush selection process. In fact, nothing was known about Thursday’s appointments until Park’s chief spokesman Yoon Chang-jung opened a sealed envelope.
This shows the importance Park put on confidentiality regarding personnel affairs but it simply defies our understanding that even the spokesman was unable to answer questions from journalists regarding the background of the selection. It will be a big problem if Park continues to be criticized for being incommunicado.
She is reportedly in charge of the appointments in person with the participation of a chosen few ― for example, her three unfamiliar confidants ― but the risk of the closed-door appointment process is well-known. That’s because such a hush-hush selection could result in candidates not being vetted properly as in the case of Yoon Chang-jung whose appointment has created a stir due to his brutal pre-election stance against liberal politicians including the DUP’s presidential contender Moon Jae-in.
Taking into consideration that the successful launch of the new administration hinges in large part on the successful formation and operation of the transition team, we can’t overemphasize the importance of recruiting its members in transparent and careful ways.