Since he took office in May 2017, President Moon Jae-in has appointed 29 minister-level officials despite the parliament’s failure to adopt confirmation reports on them due to objections from opposition parties.
He was poised to make three more such appointments when one of his nominees -- under criticism for alleged ethical lapses -- stepped down Thursday. Vice Oceans Minister Park Jun-young, who was nominated for the top post at the ministry last month, was implicated in a growing controversy over his wife’s alleged smuggling of porcelain ware.
The president now faces increased pressure to withdraw his controversial nominations. Even many ruling party lawmakers have departed from their usually compliant stance and voiced opposition to the appointments.
Moon replaced the prime minister and five other ministers last month in a reshuffle of his Cabinet in the aftermath of the ruling party’s crushing defeat in the April 7 mayoral by-elections in the nation’s two largest cities -- Seoul and Busan.
The National Assembly held confirmation hearings on the nominees last week. Among them, only two minister nominees received bipartisan support.
The main opposition People Power Party refused to adopt confirmation reports on the other three nominees, including Park, by Monday’s deadline. Its lawmakers have also boycotted a parliamentary committee meeting held to decide whether to adopt the confirmation report for Prime Minister nominee Kim Boo-kyum.
By law, the president needs the legislature’s approval to appoint a prime minister, while the appointment of Cabinet ministers does not necessarily require parliamentary consent.
On Tuesday, Moon again asked the parliament to send confirmation hearing reports for the trio of minister nominees by Friday. He is allowed to appoint them to the Cabinet posts anytime after that, if the parliament fails to do so.
In Monday’s news conference marking the fourth anniversary of his inauguration, Moon dropped a strong hint that he would press ahead with their appointments. He said he didn’t see how the presidential office had failed to verify the personal backgrounds of the controversial nominees, even if the opposition objected.
Moon said he’d chosen the nominees in consideration of their abilities and expertise, and added that the opposition was nitpicking. He went further to propose that the National Assembly change the way it operates confirmation hearings, which he said often serve as a way just to embarrass nominees rather than scrutinize their professional qualifications.
But Moon subsequently faced growing objection to the controversial nominations from within the ruling Democratic Party of Korea as well as from the opposition bloc.
In their online meeting Wednesday, half of the party’s 81 first-term lawmakers decided to ask the party leadership to recommend the withdrawal of at least one of the controversial nominations.
Their decision comes with the release of a survey of 1,000 voters early this week, which showed that nearly 60 percent of the respondents opposed the appointment of the three nominees, compared with about 30 percent in favor. Some senior party legislators have also urged Moon to withdraw the controversial nominations.
Their defiant stance appears to reflect concerns that the ruling party has little chance of winning the next presidential vote, slated for March, if Moon’s arbitrary way of handling state affairs continues unchecked. The ruling party’s new chairman, Rep. Song Young-gil, has said the party should take the lead in addressing key tasks related to people’s livelihoods.
Moon may worry that if he caves into pressure and withdraws the nominations, his grip on power will be weakened during the remainder of his five-year tenure. But it is more likely that he will be further alienated from his own party, and from the people, if he chooses to ignore public opinion.
It should also be recalled once again that Moon expressed “rage” at his predecessor Park Geun-hye’s perseverance with Cabinet appointments despite objections from the major opposition party when he was its leader. He would be well advised to take this last opportunity to match his actual personnel decisions to the rhetoric he once repeated as an opposition leader.
