President Park Geun-hye completed a Cabinet reshuffle to brace for the coming April general election by replacing five more high-level posts including two deputy prime ministers, following her appointment of two new ministers in October.

The shake-up will pave the way for some of the outgoing ministers to run for the nation’s 20th National Assembly election as long as they step down from their posts before Jan. 14. The nominees will also have to undergo parliamentary confirmation hearings.

Needless to say, households and the corporate sector will pay close attention to the economic policy directions of Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister nominee Yoo Il-ho. He is supposed to deal with the lingering woes of mounting consumer debt and sagging exports.

They will, in any case, pin their hopes on the new economic team in regard to job creation both for the young and old and easing investment barriers. The 60-year-old lawmaker-turned-minister will also need to resolve ongoing disputes between the government and workers over state-led labor reform plans.

In the wake of the history textbook controversy, attention will also be focused on one more nominee -- Lee Joon-sik, former vice president of Seoul National University, who has been nominated as deputy prime minister and education minister.

The 63-year-old is destined to undertake the assignment to “successfully” reintroduce the government-authored history textbooks for middle and high-school students under the Park administration’s initiative.

The state-run National Institute of Korean History has already publicized the guidelines for the textbooks, as a follow-up to the final decision by the Education Ministry in November to retake sole publishing rights.

But the issue is creating a nationwide backlash from a large section of society amid allegations that the president is seeking to whitewash the misdeeds of her father, the late President Park Chung-hee, in textbooks.

It is expected that during the confirmation hearings, opposition lawmakers will grill him on the state policy and Lee’s views on the Park Chung-hee military regime in the 1960-70s.

Tough hearings are expected in early January, as the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy has vowed thorough reviews of the five nominees. The other three are Joo Hyung-hwan for the Trade, Industry and Energy Ministry, Kang Eun-hee for the Gender Equality and Family Ministry and Hong Yoon-sik for the Interior Ministry.

In addition to the five ministerial posts, the president has also nominated former prosecutor Sung Young-hoon as the chairman of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission.

Park’s tenure expires in 26 months, and the nominees could be her last team before the administration becomes a lame duck.

While they could elevate her approval rating, any critical irregularity in the personal histories of the nominees or policy failures by them as ministers may advance the beginning of her lame duck status.