When Buying Houses is Crime

By Michael Breen

The annoying thing about democracy is politics.

Consider, for example, the reasons given by opponents of President Lee Myung-bak for objecting to some of his Cabinet nominees in this week's confirmation hearings.

The former ruling party now known as the United Democratic Party (UDP) is giving the thumbs down to the Prime Minister-designate and several other would-be ministers for owning too many houses and to one for allowing his children to have dual nationality.

What in a capitalist country, is the big deal with owning some houses? Is the UDP, whose candidate got thumped in the presidential election in December, out-of-touch with the people? No. The ruling Grand National Party was just as stupid when it was in opposition, opposing its opponents on the very same grounds.

So, am I saying that the politicians are pandering to the people and that the people are stupid? Yes, I am. And please remember that my country has nuclear weapons.

What we have here is leadership failure. Someone needs to stand up and defend the fact that South Korea is a capitalist country based on the rule of law. Not only is private property and profit making allowed. It is encouraged. Crime cannot be assumed simply because someone is rich. It must be proven with evidence.

But here is the beauty of democracy in action. You don't need evidence. An accusation is enough to do the dirty work.

Before I go further, in the interests of transparency I have to confess that I have two houses in France. I'll say, though, that they're heavily mortgaged and cause nothing but headaches, especially the one with the swimming pool. Oops, have I said too much? (And also my fourth child has British, American and Canadian citizenship, but don't tell the Americans about the others because they can go homeland security on you if you don't choose them first.)

But don't be fooled. These houses aren't worth much. By middle class Korean standards, I'm a failure. I can't buy my kids houses. I couldn't pay for them to spend a month at Harvard, let alone four years.

So, to me, these nominees for the Cabinet, whose personal assets average 3.9 billion won, are solid successful types. Much better than having some scruffy ajossi with shiny pants who borrows off his mates running the ministry, don't you think?

Should we envy them? No, envy is a teenage emotion and we need to act like grown-ups and not envy anyone.

But the fact is they are envied, so much so that three of President Lee's first choices have already withdrawn. His preferred minister of gender equality and family, Lee Choon-ho's public relations crime was owning 40 properties. Yes, it seems unfair, given that every woman over 28 in this country is busy buying and selling properties. But that's the problem. She has more than them.

It gets worse. Owning houses is one thing, but the Prime Minister-nominee, Han Seung-soo, is accused of ``property speculation.'' This devilish practice involves buying a house with the intention of selling it to make a profit. This villainy is rampant in countries where people are allowed to own their own houses.

Lawmakers grilled him last week in the Assembly over his 2.1 billion won fortune. Fortune? In a country where the average price of an apartment is half a million dollars? The opposition claimed that the criminal Han purchased his apartment in Gangnam during the property boom of the late 1970s. As proof of his evil intent to conceal his speculative motives, he lived in it.

The richest man in the Lee clique of rogues is Yu In-chon, nominated for culture and tourism minister. He reported 14 billion won in assets. His evil suppression of the Korean people is not limited to his four homes in Seoul. Apparently he owns properties in Gyeonggi Province and on Jeju Island as well.

Another candidate who has already taken her name off the Cabinet list is the first Environment Minister-designate Park Eun-kyung. She owns a property whose price has skyrocketed because of adjacent government development projects. UDP cadres should ask prosecutors to round up her neighbors and execute them before the National Assembly elections. That should be a vote-catcher.

Also withdrawn is Lee's choice to head the Unification Ministry, Nam Joo-hong. Now you've got to hand it to President Lee. He's a man with talent, experience, and, if this nomination is anything to go by, humor.

You'll remember he had wanted to abolish the ministry and fold its function into the Foreign Ministry. That was a good idea. There was a time when the two Koreas were locked in life-or-death competition and all government policy was rightly subordinated to unification policy. It as was above the Cabinet, in the hands of the Blue House and the intelligence agency. Anyone else who got involved was tortured.

As it became clear that the competition was over and that north Korea had to be engaged to stop it being a bad loser, policy became the responsibility of the unification minister, who was a deputy premier level official.

Now we've moved even further. President Lee sees North Korea as just another issue and rightfully wanted to hand policy over to the foreign minister. This plan was thwarted and he has to keep the Unification Ministry.

So, get this, he proposes it be headed by someone who thinks it's not really worth bothering talk to north Korea until they have something sensible to say. Opposition doesn't like that. They made hay of the fact that his children have dual nationality. While this is hardly a crime, President Lee should have known better. You can't really have your ministers openly practicing strategies for their sons to avoid military service, even if every parent in Korea wishes to do that same. So, Mr. Nam was right to let the hypocrites win that one.

That's politics.

Michael Breen is president of Insight Communications Consultants in Seoul. He can be reached at mike.breen@insightcomms.com.