After much ado the National Assembly has voted against confirming Chang Sang for the position of prime minister. While there have been main floor votes before, this was the first time a separate committee hearing was required by law in accordance with a new law that applies to high level government officials. The vote was the result of two days of confirmation hearings. Despite the high expectations surrounding what would've been the country's first female prime minister and the friendly atmosphere, President Kim Dae-jung's designs suffered a setback.
It was the first time since the sixties and the Second Republic that the National Assembly voted against confirming a prime ministerial appointee, and the reason was that the appointment was wrong from the start. It was about choosing the person second in line for the presidency, and yet an appropriate individual had not been selected, in other words, the president again was making the wrong kind of appointment. The Millennium Democratic Party and United Liberal Democrats both said they were generally for confirming Chang, but with 100 votes for and 142 votes against there were far more against, and this requires no further explanation. The MDP is openly admitting that some in its membership revolted.
The fact of the matter is that in two days of confirmation hearings, Chang never cleared up everything behind the suspicions raised about her first son's citizenship, whether she falsely reported changes in her legal domicile in the course of speculative real estate dealings, and about whether she had falsely stated her education. On the issue of her son's citizenship she blamed the Ministry of Justice. When it came to her assets, she talked about her mother-in-law. About mistakes in stating her education, she blamed her secretary. On everything, it seemed, she tried to pass responsibility on to someone else. Ultimately, even Assembly members in the MDP started suggesting there were considerable problems with her view of the Korean state, her ethics, and how much confidence could be placed in what she said.
The end results of the confirmation hearing have brought new doubts about the way the president has always made his appointments, about the lack of prior examination of people who are asked to assume positions or responsibility in government. A failure in the area of making the right kind of appointment is a failure in the running of the country. The same mistakes should not be repeated in the process of choosing another appointee.
August 1, 2002
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