[Editorial] New Year’s address shows Pres. Park’s self-righteousness in Korea

President Park Geun-hye takes a question from a reporter during her New Year’s address press conference at the Blue House, Jan. 12. Behind her is Chief of Staff Kim Ki-choon. The question was about whether or not Park would be willing to have more frequent in-person briefings from her ministers and when answering she looked toward her Blue House secretaries. (by Lee Jeong-yong, staff photographer)

It was somewhat expected, but that doesn’t make it any less galling. The New Year’s press conference given on Jan. 12 by President Park Geun-hye came across as a declaration to the public that she has done nothing wrong and plans to continue on with the same kind of leadership style and approach to filling government positions. How is possible for someone to so completely disregard all the criticisms and advice that have emerged over the month since allegations first broke about her former Chief of Staff Chung Yoon-hoi’s interference in government operations? One is tempted to draw the most chilling conclusion of all: that she sees running the country as a way of testing her own obstinacy.

It’s almost too embarrassing to have to say it again, but the Chung case isn’t about what percent of the Blue House report was true or how it got leaked. At its heart, it’s about all the problems Park has created in the government and its job appointments with her insular, opaque leadership style and reliance on a “triumvirate” of secretaries. That’s what has so many people demanding that she change her approach to governing, and it’s also why people are talking about how a first step in turning things around would be dismiss the three secretaries - Lee Jae-man, Jeong Ho-seong, and Ahn Bong-geun - along with Kim Ki-choon, the Chief of Staff who failed to rein them in.

Park‘s answer was nothing if not clear. She made it official that the three secretaries were the main heavyweights in the Blue House, talking about how “we saw there really was no corruption.” Kim Ki-choon was praised as a “person of truly rare selflessness.” Her conclusions were the exact opposite of how the public sees them. And this suggests that Park is going to spend the last three years of her term continuing to use the trio to deliver her orders and filter back messages from the outside. What else can we expect from a President who has no plans for changing an insular communicative framework that even her own ruling party and conservatives - never mind the opposition - take issue with?

Park’s obliviousness and perverse logic don’t end there. She also defended the insubordination of a Blue House senior civil affairs secretary - a person whose job it is to look after discipline among public officials - by saying she “didn’t see it as insubordination” when he resigned rather than go before the National Assembly to answer questions. She also shrugged off accusations of regional bias in her appointments, saying she is “most interested in getting the best people, regardless of where they come from.” Even as the South Korean public rates her appointments as the worst thing about her administration, she persists in the lone delusion that she’s surrounded by the best of the best. Similarly, she responded to a foreign reporter’s question about potential National Security Law abuses by referring to the “particularity of the South Korean situation” rather than the universal value of human rights.

Park’s response to a recommendation for more frequent in-person briefings from her ministers was to say, “In the past, there wasn’t phone or email, but these days the telephone can sometimes be more convenient.” When the President describes in-person briefings as “old-fashioned,” you have to ask whether she is approaching major policies issues with the deep thought they deserve. A lot of people who watched the press conference are already talking about the inability to detect any kind of personal philosophy or vision in areas like social services, labor, or education. For all her talk about “selfless dedication,” the only thing the public gets to see is the administration’s bumbling.

If anything positive did come from the press conference, it’s that everyone got to see a relatively clear picture of Park‘s self-righteousness. It’s tremendously disappointing, though, to see her moving in exactly the opposite direction from public perceptions. Who is coming to take responsibility for the tragic consequences when the President keeps defying the public’s will? It’s exasperating to think about.

　

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