President Park replaces five ministers

From left are Finance Minister nominee Yoo Il-ho; Education Minister nominee Lee Joon-sik; Trade, Industry and Energy Minister nominee Joo Hyung-hwan; Interior Minister nominee Hong Yun-sik; and Gender Equality and Family Minister nominee Kang Eun-hee. (Yonhap)

President Park Geun-hye nominated five new Cabinet minister candidates Monday to replace incumbents who are expected to step down in order to run in the general election scheduled for April 13.

Rep. Yoo Il-ho of the ruling Saenuri Party was nominated to be finance minister and Seoul National University professor Lee Joon-sik was named to lead the Ministry of Education. They will also double as deputy prime ministers for economic and social affairs, respectively.

Vice Finance Minister Joo Hyung-hwan and Hong Yun-sik, a former vice minister at the Office for Government Policy and Coordination, were tapped to head the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of Interior, respectively.

The President also nominated Kang Eun-hee, another ruling party lawmaker, as Minister for Gender Equality and Family.

The five nominees are subject to National Assembly confirmation hearings, for which no dates have been announced.

The nominations came because the five incumbent Cabinet members — Finance Minister Choi Kyung-hwan, Education Minister Hwang Woo-yea, Gender Equality and Family Minister Kim Hee-jung, Trade Minister Yoon Sang-jick and Interior Minister Chong Jong-sup — are expected to run for National Assembly seats in the April elections.

Cabinet members must step down 90 days ahead of an election — the deadline is Jan. 14 — if they plan to stand as candidates.

Moreover, the Cabinet shake-up was overdue after President Park became focused on the passage of pending bills to reform the labor market and revitalize the sluggish economy.

“Yoo served as the land minister for the Park administration up until recently and is familiar with the government’s economic policy, so he is regarded as a fit to pursue economic revitalization by successfully carrying out this policy,”said Kim Sung-woo, the senior presidential secretary for public relations.

Yoo, along with former Maritime Minister Yoo Ki-june, was replaced in October amid speculation that he would run in the general election.

The finance minister nominee, a second-term lawmaker in Seoul’s Songpa district in 2008 and 2012, said that he would follow his predecessor’s economic policy.

“The Park administration has been consistent in terms of the economic policy and I will maintain it,” he told reporters at the National Assembly.

Choi has sought to stimulate the economy through a set of expansionary measures.

Yoo also said that the government will seek measures to deal with the aftermath of the recent U.S. rate hike.

“We should fully brace for things that are similar to the situation of the financial crisis that hit Korea in 1997,” he said.

In response to the hike, there have been calls for the Bank of Korea to increase its key interest rate.

The central bank has kept its base rate at 1.5 percent, after sending it to a record-low level through four rate cuts in less than a year starting in August 2014.

As for the nominee for the education minister, Lee has taught students at the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering of Seoul National University for 20 years, according to Cheong Wa Dae.

Should Hong receive parliamentary approval, he will become the first minister who worked for the Prime Minister’s Office.

Hong, who passed the state civil service exam in 1985, launched his public career as an administrative official in Gangwon Province. Four years later, he was assigned to the Prime Minister’s Office, where he worked for 26 years.

Kang, a first-term lawmaker, has been a member of the National Assembly Gender Equality and Family Committee for the past four years.

She was a floor spokeswoman for the ruling party between 2013 and 2014 and recently led the party’s special committee on reviving state-authored history textbooks.

Meanwhile, Park also named Sung Young-hoon, a lawyer of Bae, Kim and Lee, one of the nation’s major law firms, as the chairman of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission to replace outgoing chief Lee Sung-bo.

(This article was originally published in The Korea Times)