[Editorial] Balanced appointments

One of the few tense moments during Monday’s TV debate attended by Park Geun-hye, the presidential contender for the ruling Saenuri Party, came when a panelist pressed her to clarify her aims for balanced personnel management.

He said most figures in Park’s campaign team did not give a fresh image to the public, asking her whether she would fill key posts with them if she won the Dec. 19 election.

Park suggested her campaign aides, many of whom she said have voluntarily come to help her, would not assume an office at least for a certain period of time after the election. Instead, she reiterated her pledge to make key appointments for her administration based on merit and integrity, not on regional, academic and other personal connections.

During a visit to a provincial city Monday, Rep. Moon Jae-in, Park’s rival candidate from the opposition Democratic United Party, also vowed to ensure objective and balanced personnel management in government agencies and other public organizations. He said he would release a quarterly report on public appointments during his presidency.

It is desirable and necessary that balanced personnel management is emerging as another key issue in the presidential campaign, which officially kicked off Tuesday.

Lack of balance in personnel appointments has made it difficult for nearly all previous presidents to draw support from the public and the opposition parties in pressing ahead with their key agenda. President Lee Myung-bak found himself estranged with the public in the early stage of his presidency as a result of his initial cabinet appointments that were criticized for bias toward his regional, educational and religious backgrounds.

Neither Park nor Moon has a track record good enough to assure voters that they would be better than Lee and other presidents in personnel management. Park has been said to trust a limited group of confidants, as shown in the monopoly that politicians with close links to her hold over major posts in the ruling party. Moon served as chief of staff for late liberal President Roh Moo-hyun, who came under fire for appointing only figures who shared his ideology to key posts.

They need to put forward more specific measures in the run-up to the election that the public can be sure would guarantee balanced personnel policy and thus help promote national harmony badly needed to cope with the thorny tasks they should get through during the five-year presidency.