ed Shaky start for Park

Public will pay price for unqualified Cabinet ministers

It took President Park Geun-hye 52 days to form her inaugural Cabinet, a process filled with scandal, suspicion and controversy. Out of the final four ministerial-level officials Park appointed Wednesday, three failed to pass National Assembly confirmation hearings, raising serious doubts about the efficacy of these proceedings.

Most disappointingly, President Park defied vehement opposition from her political opponents and allies alike to maintain support for a candidate least suited to head the revived Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries. The main opposition Democratic United Party quite rightly blasted Park’s naming of Yoon Jin-sook, a former marine environment researcher, as the “finishing stroke in disastrous appointments.”

It’s hard to understand why the President would pursue such a potential source of political calamity. Park maintains that Yoon has accumulated knowledge in the area through extended study. But the public are surely puzzled by how Yoon, who infuriated lawmakers and TV watchers with her ignorance and insincerity at parliamentary hearings, has turned herself into a “passionate and expert” official in a matter of a few weeks.

Yoon said that she was so nervous at the hearings that she forgot what she had long known. But people remember how Yoon giggled away, more than once, serious questions from legislators. From this, she appears to have added another vice ― lying ― to the list of reasons why she is unqualified.

Yoon acknowledged her lack of political sense, the single most important trait for a Cabinet minister, which is, after all, a political post. And it is evidently true: “That’s outrageous” was her answer to concerns of Rep. Rhee Hahn-ku, the ruling Saenuri Party’s floor leader, about her becoming a “vegetative minister.” In her inaugural address, Yoon also told ministry officials to work hard only for people without undue regard for their (lawmakers’) comments. One doesn’t need to be a Cabinet minister to know that there is very little the government can do without cooperation from the legislature.

President Park might have desperately needed to complete her Cabinet formation and wanted not to lose one of only two female ministers.

Yet Park will have far more to lose than gain from her adherence to a wrong choice. We can’t help but remain concerned in this regard about the President’s own political senses. The appointment was a “slap in the face” of the smiling opposition party at a time when her government needs to win parliamentary approval for urgent state affairs, such as the economic stimulus bill and prosecutorial reforms, aside from its adverse effects on the forthcoming by-elections.

No less worrisome is the new leader’s consciousness, which seems to regard Cabinet ministers as just political tools rather than vital assets to further national interests and the public good.

Otherwise, one can barely understand her appointment of 17 Cabinet ministers, more than half of which have been subject to popular criticism for one problem or another. Park complained about a lack of personnel data at Cheong Wa Dae, but that was a lame excuse from a leader who says that she has prepared for the job for a full decade.

All this notwithstanding, we hope Park’s judgment of Yoon is right for two reasons: a premature lame-duck president is bad for the country. And the public will eventually have to pay the price for all such mistakes.