2 new figures join transition team

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Ha Tae-keung

Son Su-jo, who ran unsuccessfully in the April 11 National Assembly elections in the southeastern port city of Busan, and Rep. Ha Tae-keung joined the presidential transition team, Friday.

Ha, 45, began working with the Special Committee for National Unity that will seek to reconcile with the victims of past authoritarian governments.

“I got a phone call from the transition team to join the committee the day before yesterday, which I accepted. I’ll do my best to fulfill the goal of the committee,” he said in an interview.

Ha is expected to serve as a coordinator of the committee led by Han Kwang-ok, a former presidential chief of staff to the late former President Kim Dae-jung, and find a role in legislative support for the ideas presented by the transition team.

Insiders said his joining the unity committee will add vitality as the student activist-turned-politician has demonstrated a strong drive to initiate his agenda. He pushed for the North Korean Human Rights Act which is still pending in the National Assembly as liberal opposition parties remain uncooperative. Before entering politics, he led the Open Radio for North Korea, a news outlet aiming to disseminate South Korean news to people living in North Korea.

His career made a dramatic turn from a student protestor fighting against the government to an activist working for North Korean human rights in the 1990s after seeing the appalling conditions there.

The unity committee has not held any meetings to date leading insiders of the transition team to voice concern that it could end up being a symbolic body.

Meanwhile, Son, 27, was called upon to serve as a member for the Youth Committee of the transition team. She was assigned to handle issues related to students and colleges, such as tuition issues.

President-elect Park Geun-hye pledged to ease household burdens by halving university fees.

During the parliamentary election held last year, Son drew a media frenzy, partly because she was the youngest candidate having run in the election in the Sasang district on the ruling Saenuri Party ticket.

Her rival at that time was the main opposition Democratic United Party’s Moon Jae-in, an experienced human rights lawyer-turned-politician. The unique lineup prompted campaign watchers to label their competition as a fight between David referring to Son and Goliath. Unlike the Biblical ending, “David” lost the Busan match-up by a wide margin.