Park ally to head broadcasting panel

President Park Geun-hye on Sunday named Lee Kyeong-jae, a close ally and veteran politician, to head the state agency regulating the broadcasting and communications industries.

In addition to the ministerlevel post, the presidential office also announced eight new vice minister-level officials at agencies including the finance, science and defense ministries.

Park has striven to fill her government posts as a number of her choices stepped down amid allegations of ethical misdeeds, including a vice justice minister who resigned Thursday due to controversy over his involvement in a sex-for-favors scandal.

Lee, 72, a media expert and former four-term legislator of the ruling party, was tapped as chief of the powerful Korea Communications Commission. The agency was at the center of recent partisan disputes over Park’s government reorganization plan as the ruling and opposition parties bickered over the division of authorities between the KCC and the new Future Planning and Science Ministry.

They finally agreed that the agency will retain the right to licensing terrestrial broadcasts.

The science ministry will have the right to approve SOs and satellite broadcasters, but must get an endorsement by the KCC.

The KCC nominee is a key member of the pro-Park faction in the Saenuri Party. A Seoul National University graduate, he was a newspaper journalist for more than 20 years and served as presidential secretary and vice minister of public relations in early 1990s. He entered the National Assembly in 1996 and served four straight terms until 2012.

The opposition Democratic United Party denounced the nomination. “We express serious concern about the nomination of the former pro-Park lawmaker, which would stir controversy of nepotism and spread doubts about the Park administration’s commitment to political neutrality of broadcasting industry,” said DUP spokeswoman Kim Hyun.

The president also named two veteran technocrats to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance. Choo Kyung-ho, vice chairman of the Financial Services Commission, and Lee Suk-joon, director of the budget office at the ministry, will become first and second vice ministers.

Choo, a graduate of Korea University, entered the civil service in 1981 and served in the finance ministry, presidential office and the Korean mission to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Lee, a SNU graduate, served as the director at the ministry’s policy coordination bureau and a commission of the Financial Services Commission.

For the Ministry of Future Creation and Science, Lee Sang-mok, secretary general of the Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies, was appointed first vice minister in charge of science and technology policy. Yoon Jong-lok, a professor at Yonsei Institute of Convergence Technology, who was formerly vice president of KT Corp. and a member of Park’s presidential transition team, was tapped as second vice minister overseeing information and communication technology policies.

Park also appointed Baek Seung-joo, a hard-line North Korea expert and senior researcher at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, as vice defense minister.

Son Jae-hak, chief of the National Fisheries Research and Development Institute, was named to the No. 2 post at the revived Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries.

Jeong Chan-woo, vice chief of the Korea Institute of Finance, was appointed FSC vice chairman, and Koh Young-sun, senior researcher at the Korea Development Institute, was named second vice minister for the Prime Minister’s Office.

“The selections were made on the basis of their professional expertise and their commitment to the president’s state philosophy,” presidential spokesman Yoon Chang-jung said.

Park still has to name the replacement of Kim Hak-ui, who resigned Thursday from the Justice Ministry, to fill all the 27 vice-ministerial posts in the executive branch.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)