President Yoon nominates three new ministers: Placing hardline right-wing figures up front and rehashing figures from the MB government

On September 13, President Yoon Suk-yeol nominated People Power Party (PPP) lawmaker Shin Won-sik (left photo) for minister of national defense, special adviser to the president for culture and sports Yoo In-chon (center) for minister of culture, sports and tourism, and former member of the PPP emergency response committee Kim Haeng (right) for minister of gender equality and family. The president is aiming to strengthen his dominance of state administration by placing strong right-wing figures at the forefront. Once again, he appointed people who served in high-ranking positions in the Lee Myung-bak (MB) government. It was also his exit strategy, replacing the heads of ministries responsible for the alleged outside pressure on the investigation of Marine Lance Corporal Chae and for problems at the World Scout Jamboree. The Office of the President claimed that the nomination of a new defense minister had nothing to do with Chae’s case, but people criticized the latest reshuffle as an attempt to “cut off the tail” and put an end to the allegation of outside intervention in the investigation.

In a press briefing at the Office of the President in Yongsan, Chief of Staff Kim Dae-ki announced that President Yoon decided on a partial reshuffle of his cabinet.

In the one year and four months since the launch of the Yoon Suk-yeol government, the president had never replaced three ministers at the same time, so the latest reshuffle was relatively large in scale. In the past, the president had constantly said that there would be no reshuffle to turn the tide in his human resources policy.

However, the latest reshuffle includes ministers who had been at the center of various allegations and controversy, and thus seems intended to “turn the tide,” indeed. A typical example is Minister of National Defense Lee Jong-sup. The defense ministry is linked to a key issue in the nation’s political situation, an allegation that there was outside pressure in the investigation of the death of Lance Corporal Chae, for which the opposition Democratic Party of Korea has called for a special prosecutor. By replacing Lee, President Yoon has broken a key bridge to resolve the allegation for now.

But a senior official from the presidential office met with reporters and said, “Chae’s case was never considered” in the process of replacing the defense minister. As for whether the president accepted Lee’s letter of resignation, the official said, “He (President Yoon) does not want to accept it,” and explained that the president thought the absence of a defense minister until the end of the confirmation hearing could be a problem.

The appointment of a new gender minister seems more likely to be an attempt to erase the government’s responsibility for problems in the Jamboree rather than just a regular appointment based on a general performance evaluation.

The new cabinet members are hardliners, whom the president seems to be placing in the forefront. Shin Won-sik, the defense minister nominee, disclosed his strong right-wing views when he was the first to call for the removal of the bust of General Hong Beom-do. Yoo In-chon, the culture minister nominee, already stirred controversy for his connection to the blacklist of artists and cultural figures in the MB government, when word about his possible nomination went around. Yoo denied any connection when a National Intelligence Service task force that investigated long-established irregularities and bad practices gave a report including such details at the time of the Moon Jae-in government.

In June, President Yoon announced his nomination of Kim Yung-ho for minister of unification and a vice minister who formerly served in the Office of the President and made it clear that in his second year in office, he would place hardliners in the forefront and personally take over state administration. The latest reshuffle was consistent with such intentions.

More figures from the MB government will also return. If Yoo is appointed, that will place two former ministers from the MB government in the cabinet. The other is Lee Ju-ho, deputy prime minister and minister of education. This will mean two men referred to as the closest of MB’s aides, Lee Dong-kwan, chair of the Korea Communications Commission and Yoo, will be responsible for policies on the press and culture connected to the freedom of expression.

The Democratic Party criticized the latest reshuffle as an attempt to sever the tail, in other words, to put an end to problems before investigations reached higher up the ladder. Kwon Chil-seung, the party’s senior spokesperson said in a briefing, “It (replacing the defense minister) was an attempt to cut the tail, to put a stop to an allegation that was heading toward the president,” and added, “It was a stubborn decision aiming to further block the communication of a government that cannot communicate by bringing in warriors of ideology as reinforcements.” Kwon described Yoo as “a typical shamelessly rehashed candidate who was the very person who suppressed artists and cultural figures and voiced rash words in the past,” and criticized the nomination of Kim Haeng saying, “She has been a friend of first lady Kim Keon-hee for twenty years. The president is practically putting gender and family policies into the hands of the first lady.”