Let's give Park some time
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By Oh Young-jin
Managing editor
When a new president is elected and a power transition is underway, people are bound to get excited over the idea of a fresh start for the nation.
However, much of the excitement fizzled out just days after President-elect Park Geun-hye’s election, triggered by a cascade of criticism over her secretiveness and unwillingness to communicate with the public.
One newspaper compared her approach to her father Park Chung-hee’s iron-fisted rule that suppressed freedom of the press.
Such concerns about the President-elect should be stowed away for the time being for at least three reasons.
It may sound naïve but a presidency is an institutional role that demands one’s complete devotion, body and soul, for the benefit of the national interest.
The weight of responsibility that comes with this job is so great that it allows no distractions.
Of course, there have been a few exceptions.
Even in some of these cases, we voters should remind ourselves that it is us who have chosen to give the President-elect the mandate to govern in a way she sees will best serve the national interest.
More specifically, the occupant of the highest office of the nation deserves the benefit of the doubt and protection from the public’s mercurial mood swings in the process of executing state affairs.
Oftentimes, mass media and opposition parties, watchdogs of those in power, scrutinize every move by the president and his or her staff. It’s their job to do so, but they should stop being impatient as they have been with previous administrations.
First of all, Korea has come a long way from the days of authoritarian government.
Korean society possesses a dynamism that is rarely seen in other advanced countries but is stable enough for us to not even imagine a power grab by military strongmen.
It was only 30 years ago when Chun Doo-hwan rose to power through a military coup.
The combination of his eight-year rule and five-year governance by his coup supporter Roh Tae-woo ended in 1993.
Corruption of the scale seen just 10 or 15 years ago is hard to imagine now, although there are still cases of bribery in some sectors of society.
All told, we can afford to give ourselves a pat on the back for making great progress toward a civil society, and trust ourselves for our way of conduct.
It’s not like telling our watchdogs to let their guard down completely. I won’t and they shouldn’t.
Considering it is not even a month since Park was elected and her transition team was activated two weeks ago, it appears to be too early to heap criticism on it.
What I am suggesting is not giving Park a blank check but at least being selective about what to find fault with. For example, we can ask Park’s aides to conduct more informative question-and-answer sessions. But lumping together her team as a secretive clique may be premature.
The media should dig more into the sudden resignation of a prominent team member but shouldn’t criticize an aide for not answering calls.
It is worthwhile to remember that a great deal of unnecessary confusion was touched off during previous changeovers of government by “loose lips” within transition teams or aides of presidents-elect.
Park’s transition team says that it doesn’t want to repeat this.
A team can’t be criticized for its intentions, can it?
Am I too generous to the new government in the making?
First of all, a transition period is when a relationship between the incoming government and the people is established and the rules between the government and the media are set.
According to how the parties involved act during this period, their relations are defined and will often be hard to change during the actual years of governance.
I strongly believe this time that the parties should be more constructively engaged.
This means each party concerned should do its duty on the basis of trust.
Why?
The success of a leader is pivotal to that of a nation and its people.
We often regret the failures of past presidents and wish a new head of state every success because we identify our interests with that of our leader.
But in reality, we curse our leaders more than we compliment them, as if they are our whipping boy. We even criticize some of our leaders for their physical appearance. Such acts give us a warped form of catharsis and a false sense of an owner-employee relationship.
You may engage in such acts within the limits of law but it is important to remind ourselves that it is our leader who we can turn to in a time of crisis. It is up to leaders to gain respect from the people, but it is our duty to give him or her credit where it’s due.
There is no set order on which comes first but so far we the people have been accustomed to follow.
This time, I suggest, we should act first for a change and offer our collective hand irrespective of whom we voted for, in order that Park and ourselves can establish a partnership in which our leader and the people have an equal stake. In other words, the more this partnership blooms, the better off all stakeholders will be.