[Editorial] New Year’s Cabinet Reshuffling

In his first task of his fourth year in office, President Roh Moo-hyun reshuffled the ministers of science and technology, unification, commerce, industry and energy, and labor yesterday.

The majority of Korean people asked for a harmony-seeking cabinet composed of experts, but President Roh did not oblige.

Appointing former lawmaker Lee Sang-soo, who was arrested and charged with receiving illegal funds for the presidential election, as Minister of Labor, right after he was defeated in the October 26 reelections, looks like “payback.”

Assigning the secretary general of the presidential National Security Council (NSC) Lee Jong-seok, who has been coordinating self-reliant national defense, to head the Ministry of Unification, can only be seen as a move by Roh to push the phrase “Between Koreas” as his regime’s trademark.

As for the minister of science and technology and minister of commerce, industry and energy, he assigned former Cheong Wa Dae Chief Secretary Kim Woo-sik and Uri Party provisional leader and floor leader Chung Sye-kyun, which is a typical example of mere personnel swapping.

In particular, with the political situation frigid due to private school law revision, assigning the floor leader of the ruling party, which will hold its convention soon, cannot be seen as anything but attitude of ignoring party politics. While announcing the deferment of assigning lawmaker Rhyu Si-min to the post of minister of welfare and health, even Presidential Secretary of Personnel Affairs Kim Wan-ki said, “It is the president’s opinion that Rhyu should have a chance to work in the cabinet.” Doesn’t this show the Cheong Wa Dae’s extreme negligence toward the ruling party when it is trying to appoint key party members to the point of pressuring the party to do so?”

Early in his presidency, President Roh clearly stated that he would not reshuffle his cabinet just to change the government’s atmosphere, meaning that he would not reshuffle his cabinet on a whim. However, during this reshuffling, his ministers of commerce and labor, who had been receiving positive reviews for their work in office, were replaced for working at their jobs “too long.” On top of that, if political favors or labor unions’ demands for the withdrawal of the labor minister played a role, it is the same as the president breaking his principles.

President Roh once again has expressed that he would go his own way no matter what people said regarding this cabinet reshuffling. Kicking off the New Year with a cabinet reshuffling that ignored the desires of the Korean people and of the ruling party makes it difficult to put any hope in this regime.