President Roh’s Damage Control Measures in Wake of Lee Ki-jun Personnel Controversy

President Roh Moo-hyun decided on January 10 to hold the senior presidential secretary for civil affairs Park Jung-kyu and senior presidential secretary for personnel management Jeong Chan-yong, who took charge of screening and recommendation, responsible for the recent row over the appointment and resignation of former deputy prime minister and minister of Education and Human Resources Lee Ki-jun and accept their resignations.

However, President Roh returned the resignations of four other members of the presidential personnel selection committee, including presidential chief of staff Kim Woo-shik, Roh`s chief policy-maker Kim Byung-joon, senior secretary for civic society Moon Jae-in, and senior press secretary Lee Byung-wan.

The decision made by President Roh to selectively accept resignation offers from six members of the presidential personnel selection committee, including presidential chief of staff Kim, seems to be the expression of his willpower to preserve the structure of national affairs management led by Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan and Kim. Also, no big change is expected regarding his pragmatic line of “Economy: Top Priority, New Détente,” that the President presented as this year’s guideline for the national agenda.

“It is so embarrassing to ask responsibilities of my aides when I made all the crucial decisions. But I will consider taking the resignations of the civil affairs and personnel secretaries in that they bear responsibilities as heads of such administrative affairs,” President Roh said on this day at Cheong Wa Dae while presiding over the president’s weekly meeting with his senior secretaries.

“It will require a certain period of time to accept the resignations as we have a lot to do at the beginning of the year and have yet to select suitable successors,” President Roh announced, expressing his intention to dismiss senior presidential secretaries Park and Jeong as soon as successors are chosen.

Jung-Hun Kim jnghn@donga.com