President-elect Park Geun-hye on Monday called on her transition committee members to focus on assessing the problems in state affairs instead of releasing new policies for a successful handover of government.

“It is important not to repeat the errors of the past in order to open the era of people’s happiness,” Park was quoted by spokesman Park Sun-kyoo as saying during its first plenary session.

During the meeting, the president-elect said that the current situation of massive change in the global economic environment and international relations meant that the “wrongful practices of the past” should not be repeated.

“In order to do that, an accurate diagnosis is more important than anything else, based on which we could start the new plan,” Park said, emphasizing that the success of the transition committee would depend on whether they could bring forth the diagnosis and the solution.

The transition team, comprising nine subcommittees, was officially launched Sunday amidst lingering criticism by the opposition Democratic United Party over its “belated and politically-biased” personnel appointments.

As Park sat before tens of members, including professors, politicians and aides, she urged them to refrain from causing confusion by releasing premature policies as had frequently been done by past governments.

Park also called on them to pay attention to curbing social anxiety caused by weakened legal order and transforming the global crisis into an opportunity.

Emphasizing that her state administration would center on people’s stability and economic revival, Park said the “era of people’s happiness” would only come when the people can feel at ease.

Following the general gathering, representatives of the nine subcommittees convened in the afternoon and agreed on how to divide up the government organizations they will handle. They will decide on how and when to receive reports from each organization, the transition committee spokesman Yoon Chang-jung said.

“This time, a couple of subcommittees will receive the reports from the relevant government organizations simultaneously as part of the efforts to fortify collaboration,” Yoon said.

With regard to the launch of a roundtable gathering of political leaders of all sides, as pledged during the presidential campaign, Park Sun-kyoo said discussion was under way.

“We plan to seek cooperation for the opposition party to join us as soon as they are ready, by leaving the door wide open.”

Other agenda discussed during the meeting included Park’s emphasis on restoring social trust, implementing policies for the small and mid-sized companies, breaking the egotism between government organizations and creating the social capital to needed to become an advanced nation, according to Yoon Chang-jung.

Meanwhile, news reports said the transition committee was reviewing such measures as making temporary jobs in the public sector permanent by 2015, or introducing a new tax on foreign currency exchanges to ward off speculative foreign funds, citing unidentified sources.

The main Democratic United Party, for their part, continued to slam Park’s team.

“It is unfathomable that a winner would attempt to break up the ‘honeymoon’ by making not only such closed-off personnel decisions but appointing radically conservative figures,” said DUP floor leader Park Ki-choon at the party’s meeting.

“The transition committee, which sets the direction for the next five years, must not attempt to conquer the people,” he added.

By Lee Joo-hee (jhl@heraldcorp.com)