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A transfer of political power involves the replacement of people. When one administration hands power over to another, key officials step down and are replaced by people who will realize the policy objectives of the new government. This is the will of the people who have chosen them through their votes. But certain officials from the Roh Moo-hyun administration seem to have failed to grasp this natural principle of a free and democratic society. It’s been more than 10 days since the new government was launched, but officials who ought to step down are said to be stubbornly clinging to their positions.
There are positions, such as that of the chief justice of the Supreme Court, whose tenure is guaranteed without being affected by the change of governments, to maintain the independence of the judiciary. But it is unpleasant to see officials who rose to their positions due to their connections to the president refuse to step down. And it is simply shameless of officials to suddenly develop an urge to protect the independence of their organizations when they were until now busy serving as political enforcers for the president who hired them.
When the president who commissioned them has ended his term, it is basic etiquette for presidential appointees to tender their resignations and wait to see whether their new leader will retain them.
Moreover, the latest transfer of political power did not merely involve a change in leadership, but a sweeping shift in the ideology and policy objectives of the government. The policies of the old and new president are starkly different. Just looking at corporate policy, the new president seeks comprehensive deregulation. As a result, it was only natural that Fair Trade Commission Chairman Kwon Oh-seung stepped down, even though he had a year left in office.
In the area of media policy, the former president created a new organization funded by taxpayers’ money to help boost the circulation of selected newspapers. That was his strategy for punishing newspapers that were critical of his policies, while rewarding those that praised him. The new president has said that it is ludicrous for the government to interfere with the news media. Then those officials who either asserted that the government should interfere in the affairs of the press or those who had been appointed to their posts by organizations mandated to interfere in the operations of the media should have stepped down by now. This applies particularly to those who mistook public broadcast channels as the weapons of war and served as the mouthpiece of the government. Most of the officials who don’t know when to quit are those who were unable to distinguish between professional and personal objectives while in office.
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