The following is the eighth in a series of articles on the major tasks and key members of President-elect Park Geun-hye’s transition team. ― Ed.


The committee on people’s grand unity was one of the first panels set up by President-elect Park Geun-hye upon her election as she pledged to move beyond the old paradigm of industrialization and democratization and build a cohesive society.

And it will be one of the committees expected to remain under the president upon her inauguration, along with the panel on youth.

Headed by former opposition leader Han Gwang-ok, the committee has thus far remained relatively low key, as public attention was drawn to the transition committee and its administrative plans for the new government. 

Nonetheless, the creation of the grand unity committee may be the only decision by Park that even the main opposition Democratic United Party praised.

“We acknowledge Park’s decision to establish the people’s grand unity committee by taking the 48 percent of the people that did not vote for her into consideration,” DUP spokesman Jung Sung-ho had said.

As its cryptic name suggests, its role is quite ambiguous yet ambitious.

Running parallel to the transition committee and being divided up into five different sub-committees, the panel aims to achieve integration among the regions, generations, ideologies, class and civil society.

Much of its work is a continuation of the Committee for Korea’s 100 Percent and Grand Unity during Park’s campaign with most of the members remaining the same.

The subcommittee on regions is said to be working on ways to resolve the tension between the conservative east and progressive west. The committee’s task, therefore, is also said to be related to Park’s selection of her prime minister, who her team had vowed would represent integration. The subcommittee is also said to be focusing on ways to support the development of the Jeolla provinces, a region considered to have been left out of statewide projects during the country’s rapid industrialization.

A widening generational rift is the task for the subcommittees on generation to tackle, following the divide in voter preference seen in last month’s presidential election.

While Park enjoyed 62.5 percent and 72.3 percent of support from those in their 50s and 60s, respectively, her liberal rival Moon Jae-in of the DUP received 65.8 percent and 66.5 percent of the votes from those in their 20s and 30s, according to the exit polls.

Realigning the ruling camp’s relations with the opposition forces is also one of the crucial missions for the subcommittee on ideology as the nation reels from an ideological clash between the right and left throughout last year, when the major parliamentary and presidential elections were held.

The subcommittee on class, meanwhile, has undertaken the job of seeking measures to improve the status of multicultural families, laborers and North Korean defectors.

One of the key examples of Park’s unity drive is the bill pending at the National Assembly to investigate and compensate the victims of the oppressive rule under former President Park Chung-hee, father of Park. Park joined the bill submission in November.

The committee’s future activities are expected to be closely in cooperation with various civic society activists. Last Thursday, the committee invited various figures representing both progressive conservative groups to gather their opinions on how to integrate the people.

The committee plans to host two or three more such events during the transition period for the results to be reported to the president-elect.

Spearheading the committee is Han, former lawmaker and a close aide to former President Kim Dae-jung. He has a firm political base in the opposition-strong South Jeolla Province and is considered a key figure to enable Park’s reconciliation with the victims of her father’s rule.

Kim Kyung-jae, also a former key aide to former President Kim, is the committee’s senior vice chairman. He contributed to Park’s unity drive by joining her presidential campaign last year. He has been vocal about his belief in Park’s sincerity.

One of the two vice chairpersons is Ihn Yohan, a medical doctor and descendent of Eugene Bell, one of the first U.S. missionaries to Korea. He was also the first foreign national to be given citizenship for his contribution to the country.

Another is Yoon Joo-kyung, the granddaughter of independence fighter Yoon Bong-gil.

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