President Park Geun-hye has nominated Kim Soo-nam, deputy head of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, to succeed Prosecutor General Kim Jin-tae, whose two-year term expires early next month.
As is usual with the president’s choice of the top prosecutor, Park’s nomination of Kim immediately generated a debate on his qualifications, with the focus placed on his regional background.
Kim hails from the same southeastern city of Daegu as Park. Blue House officials insist that Kim’s hometown has nothing to do with the president’s decision.
But given how much regional background matters in Korean politics, Park cannot avoid the suspicion that it was one of the major factors in tapping Kim. In fact, there were four candidates for the top prosecutor’s post, of whom Kim and another man, also from the southeastern region, were leading candidates.
We need not care about things like the regional background of the president and top officials if Park is a president who, unlike her predecessors, does not dictate or pressure the prosecution to do this or that. Or if the prosecution is faithful to its constitutional obligation to uphold political neutrality. But neither is the case.
The prosecution under the current chief, who also comes from the southeastern region, had faced criticism that it was pandering to the Park administration. One example is its investigation into alleged wrongdoings involving the former chairman of POSCO and former President Lee Myung-bak’s brother.
It is an open secret that the prosecution launched the probe into POSCO under the direction of the Blue House — or at least to please the president — considering Lee was Park’s political archrival in the conservative ruling party.
There were more cases in which the state prosecution acted in a way seen as catering to the president and the ruling camp, which is why the installation of another top prosecutor from the southeastern region is worrisome.
A bigger problem is that the prosecution is not the only key office to which the president sends people from the region whose populace is favorable to her. In fact, top posts of major other agencies with investigative rights had already been filled by people from the southeastern region.
The powerful offices — which the government in power often abuses for its political interests — include national police agency (its current chief and the nominee Kim went to the same high school in Daegu), tax service, antitrust watchdog, top state audit agency and even the Blue House anticorruption units.
This president’s excessive regional bias often becomes the target of criticism, not only from the opposition but also from the public.
The Korean Bar Association, reacting to the nomination of Kim, said in a statement that the prosecution has been under criticism that it is engaged in probes ordered by the top and exercises its right to indict arbitrarily.
As the association said, the new prosecutor general should not pander to political power and should instead uphold political neutrality and fairness. That will be possible only when the president resists the temptation to abuse the prosecution for her political interests and when the new nominee has the courage to stand up to any political pressure.
