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President Roh Moo-hyun has announced his decision to leave the Uri Party. Referring to the four government ministers who come from the ruling party, he said, ¡°The prime minister is stepping down, but why must ministers do the same?¡± Ministers must have taken this as their cue to stay with Uri. Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung, Health and Welfare Minister Rhyu Si-min and Labor Minister Lee Sang-soo have suggested they have no intention of leaving the ruling party, the exception being Agriculture Minister Park Hong-soo.
¡°There is no rule that requires ministers to leave the party just because the president does,¡± a senior Cheong Wa Dae official said. But the public believe they ought to. The president¡¯s decision to leave the party signifies to some degree that he is becoming politically neutral. It seems illogical for a neutral president to hold weekly meetings with ministers who are members of a particular political party and devise policies with them.
The presidential office says the fact that a minister is a party member does not pose a problem in terms of neutrality in elections. But when former president Roh Tae-woo left the ruling party in October 1992, five ministers and vice ministers who were members of the party also left the same day. When Kim Young-sam left the ruling party in November 1997, no ministers were members of the ruling party. And when Kim Dae-jung quit the ruling party in 2002, six ministers left with him, leaving no ministers in the Cabinet with party affiliations.
The former presidents made those decisions since it was considered common sense, in terms of both politics and public perception. The presidential office now is seeking to overturn that view. This is not surprising, considering that President Roh already disappointed the public several times by saying the president ¡°has no obligation to remain politically neutral¡± or ¡°what is the use of keeping a neutral Cabinet?¡±
As Cheong Wa Dae says, there is no guarantee that the Cabinet will become neutral simply because some ministers leave the ruling party. But it is a first step for ministers, who control policies and wield tremendous influence. This illogical union of a politically-unaffiliated president and ministers who are party members is simply a ploy by the president to help the ruling party in its plan to regroup under a different name.
If the president sticks to his view that his ministers do not have to leave the ruling party, we should ask Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook why she left the ruling party when serving as minister of gender equality and family under Kim Dae-jung.
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