Jun Ji-hye, a reporter at the finance desk of The Korea Times, focuses primarily on economic policy and government agencies, mainly covering the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Ministry of Budget and Planning, the National Tax Service and the Korea Customs Service. She previously covered financial authorities, including the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service, and earlier worked on the political, city and business desks, reporting on a wide range of issues.
Doubts on PM nominee's clean image
The area covered with grass in the upper side of the photo shows territory in the Bundang district of Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province owned by the second son of Prime Minister-nominee Lee Wan-koo. The nominee is under fire for alleged involvement in property speculation. / Yonhap
By Jun Ji-hye
By Jun Ji-hye
Only one of President Park Geun-hye’s four candidates for prime minister has passed muster.
The outgoing Prime Minister Chung Hong-won is the only one who has made it so far. The three failures are Park’s presidential transition team leader Kim Yong-joon, former senior prosecutor Ahn Dae-hee and former journalist Moon Chang-keuk.
Will the latest nominee Rep. Lee Wan-koo of the ruling Saenuri Party pass or fail?
The former floor leader of the Saenuri Party was expected to breeze through the National Assembly confirmation hearing, when he was nominated.
His fellow lawmakers within both the ruling and opposition parties reacted well to the nomination of the third-term lawmaker, obviously because they feel camaraderie for Lee, being a lawmaker, on top of his reputation as a clean and competent politician.
The opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) has been comparatively quiet since Lee’s nomination.
Now, things are beginning to change.
The most controversial case involves land in Bundang, Gyeonggi Province, which Lee’s family is suspected of buying for speculative purposes.
According to vernacular daily Dong-A Ilbo, Lee’s long-time friend, surnamed Kang, bought the land in June 2000 after the lawmaker advised him to do so. Then, Kang sold it to Lee’s mother-in-law in July 2001. Two months later, the government finalized a plan to build a new city in Pangyo, which was near this land.
Lee’s mother-in-law gave the land to Lee’s 34-year-old second son in 2011.
The land was worth 260 million won ($240,000) in 2000, but is now valued at more than 2 billion won, granting Lee’s family a tenfold margin.
Lee denied the property speculation, saying, “The real transaction land price back then was 756 million won, and my family paid 637 million won in taxes.”
However, taking the relationship between Lee and Kang into consideration, Lee’s explanation still seems to leave many questions unanswered.
Rep. Lee has also been embroiled in a controversy over his alleged plagiarism when he received a doctor’s degree from Dankook University in 1994. Lee admitted that he paid little attention to citations.
Other controversies include the doubtful conscription exemption of Lee himself and that of his second son, which the lawmaker denies.
Experts claim that lawmakers should not overlook Lee’s alleged wrongdoings simply because he has been their colleague.
“The opposition parties have no presence in dealing with Lee’s confirmation. Instead, the media is playing that role,” Prof. Lee Yung-hyeock of Konkuk University told reporters. “They should reject regionalism and school relations in order to draw a line between public and private matters.”
Lawyer Kang Yeon-jae argued that Lee appears to be prepared to explain the suspicions surrounding him, and it is a lawmakers’ job to verify the honesty of his explanation.
Kang pointed out, “Rep. Moon Hee-sang, NPAD’s interim leader, visited Lee to deliver well-wishing remarks after he was nominated as prime minister. This was imprudent behavior, given that Lee’s current position is just as a nominee, not the prime minister.”
The National Assembly is planning to carry out confirmation hearings for Lee over two days from Feb. 9, and then hold a vote to approve the appointment motion on Feb. 12.
Follow Jun Ji-hye on Twitter @TheKopJihye