‘President handles all due to lack of central policy command`

Among the nine senior presidential secretaries, only senior press secretary Lee Jung-hyun and senior future strategy secretary Yoon Chang-beon were members of President Park Geun-hye’s election camp during her candidacy. The president has been stressing implementation of her election pledges, but none of the aides who had long studied her election pledges with the president, including Kim Kwang-doo, director of the Institute for the Future of State, and representatives Ahn Jong-beom and Kang Seok-hoon, joined the presidential office.

The previous administrations used to manage the presidential office stably by forming a team of presidential aides with members of their election camps in the early days of presidencies, and strongly pushed to implement the president’s philosophy and tasks in state administration, before deploying bureaucrats in the latter half of their governments.

Unlike the previous administrations, President Park formed her team of secretaries primarily with bureaucrats from the beginning of this administration. The measure was taken for the presidential office to seek close cooperation with government ministries, but the secretaries had to spend a considerable period of time just trying to figure out the president’s intention and plans, including creative economy and basic pension, in the early days of her government.

Critics say as both the presidential office and the Cabinet were formed with bureaucrats from ministries, roles of the presidential office and those of ministries have overlapped. They claim that although the presidential office operates stably, presidential secretaries lacked commitment to push to implement the president’s philosophy in state administration by pressuring the ministries.

“Unlike the Cabinet, the presidential office should be filled with people who are ready to courageously end their careers to protect the president,” said Kwak Seung-joon, Korea University professor who served as senior presidential secretary for policy planning under the Lee Myung-bak administration. “In the early days of a presidency the presidential office should work to implement reforms that bureaucrats are reluctant to accept. Therefore, it is inappropriate that the presidential office has many bureaucrats who don’t want to push for policies that would be unwelcomed by ministries.”

Many critics say the presidential office lacks aides who make outspoken suggestions to the president since there isn`t deep trust between the president and aides.

It appears inevitable that the teams of Park’s senior presidential secretaries and secretaries will be reshuffled after the June 4 local elections. While the presidential office cannot be considered immune to the responsibility for chaotic situation that broke out after the Sewol’s sinking, if only the Cabinet is reshuffled whereas the presidential office is kept intact, the administration’s commitment to overhaul the state could be tarnished and doubted.

Experts say that since there is no powerful central command that will strongly push to implement state agenda within the presidential office, it looks as if the president takes care of policy measures all alone while her aides blindly follow instructions.

Presidential Secretary of Staff Kim Ki-choon and senior presidential secretary for state affairs planning Yoo Min-bong don’t have hands-on experience, including that in the field of economy, to serve as central command. The two did not participate in developing President Park’s election pledges either. A source at the presidential office said, “Among the senior presidential secretaries, no one is well versed in state agendas as much as the president. Therefore, they can hardly afford to make suggestions to the president.”

Kim Byong-joon, a professor of Kukmin University who served as senior presidential secretary for policy planning under the Roh Moo-hyun administration, said, “The post of senior presidential secretary for policy planning should be revived. If the current system is to be kept intact, the presidential chief of staff should be filled with someone who well understands the current administration’s policy.”

“For the post of the senior presidential secretary for political affairs, the presidential office should appoint a multi-term lawmaker who can efficiently communicate with young members of the National Assembly, in lieu of a non-politician, which can help ease political burden weighing on the president,” said Yoon Jong-bin, professor of Myongji University. “The senior future strategy secretary, which was newly instated by the incumbent administration, has yet to display his proactive role to present vision for creative economy.”