Published : Aug. 9, 2010 - 18:48
The appointment of a 47-yearold prime minister-designate has raised the curtain for a new generation of politicians in the limelight two years ahead of the presidential elections.
The nomination of former governor Kim Tae-ho as the prime minister portends fiercer competition within his age group to contest Rep. Park Geun-hye’s standing as the ruling party’s presidential frontrunner.
The Grand National Party’s junior assemblymen in their late 40s and early 50s have already begun to raise their voices, notably after the party was defeated in the June 2 local elections.
Shortly after President Lee Myung-bak mentioned the need of a “young and vital party,” two-term lawmakers Rep. Na Kyung-won and Rep. Chung Doo-un made it to the GNP leadership in the national convention last month.
The president replaced his top aides with the up and coming in their early 50s -- Rep. Yim Tae-hee as presidential chief of staff, Baek Yong-ho as chief of policy staff and Rep. Chung Jin-suk as senior secretary for political affairs.
Forty-six-year-old Rep. Wohn Hee-ryong was appointed as the GNP’s secretary general while assemblymen in his age group took over as chiefs of most of the parliamentary standing committees.
Reelected Seoul mayor Oh Se-hoon and Gyeonggi governor Kim Moon-soo have also joined the group of presidential hopefuls.
Former GNP chairwoman Park Geun-hye, who lost to Lee Myung-bak in the party’s internal race for the presidential nomination in 2007, leads a faction that a third of the GNP lawmakers belong to.
The pro-Lee majority, which consists of those following the president’s 74-year-old brother Rep. Lee Sang-deuk, recently resurrected kingmaker Lee Jae-oh and smaller groups of young lawmakers, has yet to groom a heavyweight to match Park. Former party chairman Rep. Chung Mong-joon, Oh Se-hoon and Kim Moon-soo are currently deemed as the next strongest.
Prime Minister-designate Kim Tae-ho arrives at his office in Seoul on Monday. (Park Hae-mook/The Korea Herald)
Sixty-five-year-old Lee Jae-oh’s return to the National Assembly and his nomination as the minister of special affairs Sunday made the four-term legislator another variable in the GNP’s run-up to the presidential elections.
Wohn Hee-ryong
The opposition parties, powerless as they are, could also seek rebound through a generational shift.
Na Kyung-won
It remains to be seen whether the generation born in the 1960s manages to get to the main opposition Democratic Party’s leadership in its upcoming caucus.
Lee Kwang-jae
The election of Song Young-gil as Incheon mayor, Ahn Hee-jeong as governor of South Chungcheong and Lee Kwang-jae as governor of Gangwon has made them dark horses for the 2017 presidential elections.
Song Young-gil
South Gyeongsang governor Kim Doo-kwan, an independent, is also in his early 50s while 40-year-old Lee Jung-hee took helm of the minor Democratic Labor Party last month.
The DP, currently under a single-person leadership, is in dispute over whether to have multiple leaders.
Many of the DP legislators in their 50s and 60s including three-term Rep. Park Joo-sun call for a shift to the group leadership system, whereas the younger ones including Rep. Choi Jae-sung prefer the current system.
As the DP’s Big Three -- Chung Sye-kyun who stepped down last week as party chairman, standing advisors Sohn Hak-kyu and Chung Dong-young -- are expected to run for party leadership, junior assemblymen are likely to lose ground under a group leadership system.
Buoyed by the elections of Barack Obama as U.S. president and David Cameron as British prime minister, a new generation of politicians have begun to pave their way towards presidency.
Sunday’s Cabinet shake-up pulled down the average age of ministers from 60.4 to 58, and the value of their assets from 2.66 billion won to 1.47 billion won.
By Kim So-hyun (sophie@heraldcorp.com)