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Over the past year since the Lee Myung-bak administration took power, the power elite, which is leading the Korean society, has been shifting from the "former student activists-turned-politicians known as the 386 generation" to "conservative technocrats."
Prof. Jang Hoon of ChungAng University said, "If the key group of the Roh Moo-hyun administration was a combination of the left-wing intellectuals and the 386-generation power elite, the power elite of the Lee Myung-bak administration is a combination of pro-growth advocates in their 60s and intellectual technocrats in their 50s. The key groups in the Lee administration's power elite seem to have weaker unity."
If we compare the Roh and Lee administrations at the beginning of their respective second year, the average age of their power elite groups has increased. The average age of Cabinet members increased from 57.9 to 61.9, and that of presidential secretaries from 48.5 to 51.1.
During the Roh administration, many presidential secretaries at Cheong Wa Dae were in their 30s. But the key members of the current presidential secretaries are conservative technocrats in their early 50s.
Prof. Park Gil-sung of Korea University said, "Non-mainstreamer elite led the Roh administration. But typical mainstreamer elite are the key members of the Lee administration."
Among 122 ministers, vice ministers and presidential secretaries in the Lee administration, the number of those from the Seoul metropolitan area decreased from 39, when its first Cabinet was formed last year, to 33 this year. But those from Gyeongsang provincial regions increased from 37 to 41, or 33.6 percent. There was no change in the number of those from Jeolla regions (19, or 15.6 percent). Those from Chungcheong regions increased from 16 to 19, and those from Gangwon and Jeju also increased from 7 to 9.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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