Park GH selects chief planner and heads of two key committees
The ruling Saenuri Party announced Monday the formation of its election planning team and two key committees largely comprised of neutral and external figures to help presidential candidate Park Geun-hye in the December race.
The party’s Supreme Council held a meeting and named retired Supreme Court justice Ahn Dae-hee the chairman of the “Special Committee on Political Reform.”
Upon her election as presidential candidate Aug. 20, Park had pledged that such a body would be immediately launched to fight off corruption in politics.
Ahn is renowned for having been a ruthless prosecutor against political crimes and spearheaded the prosecution’s probe into the illegal political funds of the former-Grand National Party, the precursor to the Saenuri Party, in 2003.
“Candidate Park mentioned (as the committee’s tasks), preparing practical measures to break the recurrences of irregularities among those in power, along with ways to improve the problems concerning the credibility of the judiciary bodies and political corruption such as nomination irregularities,” Ahn said at a press conference. He added families and associates of Park would also not be exempt from the committee’s watch.
The ruling party also named Kim Chong-in, former member of the party’s emergency committee for the April’s general election, as the chairman of the “Special Committee on People’s Happiness” to devise and implement campaign pledges on economic democratization, welfare and employment. Kim, a former economist, was the co-head of Park’s campaign for the primary. Kim is also famous for having drafted the phrase “economic democratization” into the Constitution upon its revision in 1987.
Former chief policymaker and four-term lawmaker Rep. Lee Ju-young was appointed as head of the 11-member election planning team. The team will be responsible for planning strategies and bringing in players until the party launches the official central election committee around Sept. 23.
The two special committees, meanwhile, are expected to play pivotal roles along with the party’s election committee in the lead up to the Dec. 19 race.
“We recruited various figures from inside and outside the party equipped with expertise in both theories and experience,” said Secretary-general Rep. Suh Byung-soo.
“Ahn is the right man for the post as a former prosecutor with clean integrity, and has eradicated corruption in politics. Kim signifies economic democratization that can integrate the forces both within and outside the party,” he added.
Former lawmaker Kim Byung-ho, a television journalist-turned-politician, was tapped as the chief of public relations, to take charge of Park’s PR activities and to deal with negative offensives from the opposition parties. Kim helped Park back in the 2007 primary.
Three-term Rep. Choi Kyung-hwan, who is said to be one of the close confidants of the former chairwoman, was named chief secretary.
As for the People’s Happiness Committee, the party said Rep. Chin Young and Seoul National University professor Moon Yong-lin will take part as co-chairmen.
Seoul National University Park Hyo-chong, Chung-Ang University professor Lee Sang-don and Rep. Park Min-shik will be among those on the Political Reform Committee.
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
