The people are fed up with Cheong Wa Dae's broken appointment process for Cabinet posts. The controversy over the latest batch of President Moon Jae-in's seven nominees for ministers earlier this month underlined Cheong Wa Dae's serious flaws in personnel screening.
In addition, former Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson Kim Eui-kyeom resigned from his post last week amid news reports that he engaged in real estate speculation. All these incidents have aggravated the public anger toward the Moon administration, which has increasingly come under fire for its incompetence in various areas. Last week, Moon's job approval rating fell to its lowest level since he took office in May 2017. A Gallup survey released March 29 showed that only 43 percent of respondents approved of his job performance, which is 2 percent lower than the previous week. Cheong Wa Dae's flawed personnel affairs was one of reasons for the continued drop in Moon's approval ratings.
There have been problems with Cheong Wa Dae's nominees before and it has been criticized about it repeatedly, but it continues to keep its pattern of appointing people who do not meet the people's standards for ethics and transparency. Cho Dong-ho, the nominee for science minister, is a case in point. The presidential office on Sunday withdrew his nomination after his past activities came under scrutiny during the confirmation hearing at the National Assembly last week. It is the first time for President Moon to withdraw his nomination for a Cabinet post since he took office. The nominee for transportation minister, Choi Jeong-do, withdrew voluntarily from consideration over allegations of property speculation. Two of the seven nominees announced earlier this month have failed to be appointed.
The problem is that Cheong Wa Dae still does not know what it is doing wrong. Moon has entered into the third year of his presidency and it is no longer acceptable for Cheong Wa Dae to keep making similar mistakes with appointments. What is worse is that the presidential office kept making lame excuses. Yoon Do-han, senior secretary to the President for public relations, said Cheong Wa Dae's verification process has its limitations because they are based primarily on official records and blamed Cho for not bringing some of his past problematic activities to attention before the nomination was made public.
The presidential office said that it had taken seriously the people's concerns raised during the hearing of Choi, who was criticized for his dubious real estate purchases. But given how sensitive the people are about real estate issues, it is completely incomprehensible how Cheong Wa Dae had come to the decision to nominate officials with a background in property speculation to a ministerial post.
Even after all the repeated mistakes in appointments, no one in the presidential office is willing to take responsibility. When asked if there is anyone at Cheong Wa Dae who will consider resignation over the failed appointments, Yoon said this had not been discussed.
Many people and the opposition parties believe that it is past time for the President to do something about Cho Kuk, senior presidential secretary for civil affairs. After so many problems he has caused with appointments, Moon needs to get rid of him and surround himself with a team of people who will take care of the appointment process more meticulously.