This just ruined my weekend:
President-elect Lee Myung-bak’s transition team and rival parties on Friday reached a tentative agreement to retain the Unification Ministry in the lineup of Lee’s incoming government, spokespersons for the team and parties said.
The fate of the Unification Ministry, which is in charge of inter-Korean relations, has been at the center of a political confrontation, with Lee determined to close it and four other ministries under his government reorganization bills submitted to the National Assembly last month. [Yonhap]
Lee had earlier vowed to get rid of the North Korea apologists that compose the Unification Ministry and now it has a new lease on life. I have to wonder if this wasn’t some deal Lee made in order to push his canal project idea through the national assembly?Â
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10:20 am on February 9th, 2008 1
No, someone in North Korea just emailed him and told him they needed Minifiction to stay. Looks much better for the façade.
10:34 am on February 9th, 2008 2
There is also the practical problem of dumping unemployable civil servants onto the economy. Unification Ministry officials don’t have much in the way of skills suitable or in demand for the market economy, since they’ve spent the last 10 years trying to undermine it.
12:42 pm on February 9th, 2008 3
It may stay, but I predict the bureaucrats there will spend the next 5 years staring at their cubicle walls and doing the kind of pointless make-work that never leaves the building, except in a garbage bag. The cabinet minister in charge of the UniMIn is going to be a Lee MyungPak man, so don’t expect to see him publicly disputing/contradicting the Ministers of Finance&Economy and Foreign Affairs, as Roh allowed.
2:17 pm on February 9th, 2008 4
I don’t know. I thought sucking ass was a fairly useful tool in high up circles in just about any industry???
Seeing Lee give up on this so soon, without even any opposition, basically caving before even getting into the gate, I’d have to say the critics who said initially he was probably talking about doing the deed in order to have a chip to bargain away were correct.
I figured Lee’s plan for the anti-Unification Ministry would be like Clinton’s health care agenda: something he believed in and would fight for but would probably buckle under intense pressure on.
Now, I just wonder if he will even bother to clean house over there?
I seem to remember that - at the working levels - some of our best NK intel has been produced by the ministry over the years - even in the Roh years —- but the top was full of clearly just pro-North useful idiots.
Maybe if Lee lops off the heads of thing — cuts deep in the top admin positions — we can see some real changes from what has made itself into a laughing stock of a ministry.
2:44 pm on February 9th, 2008 5
Figure that Lee is finally getting realistic with his transition plans. His massive government restructuring was going to lose as the Uri Party was still in power and Roh threatened to veto it. It’s not going to survive. Thus to keep from ending up with a government with empty ministries when he takes control on 25 Feb, he now has to suck in the loss of face and press on.
However, this isn’t the last to be heard of this. He’s just waiting for the April elections when the conservatives will officially take power — at least that is what is predicted — and then he can move on his plans.
But as was mentioned before, Roh Moo-hyun added 60,000 folks to the government payroll during his five years and kicking the majority of them on the streets will create one hell of a mess. His ambitious reorganization plans really needed to take a step back before the axe falls. After April will be best since he will have a majority mandate from the electorate — if he doesn’t screw things up between now and then.
9:34 am on February 11th, 2008 6
Brandon,
Most of UoMin staff that I met were graduate of prestigious US Universities. Most that I met have MA/MS from Harvard Kennedy School of Government or Georgetown Walsh School of Foreign Study. They do have very good academic credential. As long as they can shake off their negative linkage to former UoMin political appointed bosses, maybe they can be useful in other ROKG ministries or think tanks. I bet many of these staffs were regretting joining UoMin now.