Twelve Ministers in One Year - Korea

[dArKeR]

On Friday President Roh Moo-hyun changed part of his presidential staff. In the period of less than a year that makes 12 out of 19 ministers and 9 out of 13 senior secretary and aide positions that have been changed.

President Roh has broken his own promise. When he was a candidate and when he celebrated his first 100 days in office last June, he said “you’re not doing politics well by randomly and frequently changing the cabinet.” He promised to “be prudent with cabinet changes, and try to maintain the same cabinet as long as possible.”

It would be hard to find another country that changes its ministers as often as Korea. You don’t even need to mention the American example, where cabinet secretaries appointed at the time a president’s inauguration are usually kept around for three to four years. How can the country operate with any normalcy when ministers and presidential secretaries last a year? This is a country where there are so many large-scale incidents and large-scale mishaps that a month feels like a year, so you wonder how any minister or secretary could ever judge a given situation, let alone formulate policy.

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200402/200402130031.html