South Korean President Lee Myung-bak sacked three ministers yesterday in his first Cabinet reshuffle, trying to restore support for his four-month-old government under pressure over an unpopular US beef import deal.
Lee replaced his agriculture, health and education ministers. The three have been blamed for policy blunders such as the beef deal reached in April that helped drive public support for his conservative government to below 20 percent.
Lee has seen near-daily protest rallies since May, sparked by a public concerned over mad cow disease that later turned to a broader attack on his pro-business policies.
The Cabinet offered to resign en masse a month ago as protests intensified. There had been speculation in local media that Lee might also sack his foreign and finance ministers.
Lee, who scored a landslide win in a December election, said in an interview with Japan’s Kyodo news agency on Sunday that if protests continue, it would be a “detrimental” factor dragging down Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
South Korea recently slashed its economic growth target for this year to a three-year low of 4.7 percent, from 6 percent previously, as commodities-led inflation bites into consumer spending and corporate investment.
The Cabinet change was the latest in a series of efforts by Lee to stop the protests and check the slide in his popularity, including repeated televised apologies and the removal of all his top aides, but analysts saw the moves as too little too late.
Lee will not be able to push through reforms such as privatizing state-run firms and mortgage debt relief for low-income households unless he can win back public support, analysts said.
“It is entirely possible to win back public support,” said Jeong Chan-soo, executive director at Min Political Consulting. “But this president has lost his appeal with the public and unless he wins that back it will be difficult.”
The new leader of the opposition Democratic Party said the shake-up fell far short of the overhaul of the Cabinet’s economic posts needed to make up for the administration’s failure to manage inflation and tackle high energy prices.
Lee did replace a vice finance minister who had long been an advocate for a weaker local currency to help boost exports but has recently been criticized for aggravating inflation.
On Saturday, about 50,000 people protested peacefully in Seoul against the beef deal and Lee’s policies, far fewer than the half a million organizers had hoped for.
On Sunday, protesters could not rally enough people for a street march through central Seoul for the first time in more than a month, in what analysts said may be a sign that mass street rallies are dying down.
Jeong at Min consulting said that does not mean Lee will be able to get on with his economic reforms immediately.
“But soon we will have a situation where the economic condition must change, and when that happens the public will be calling for those reforms before he does.”
Lee tapped Jang Tae-pyoung, a former agriculture ministry official, to take over the ministry and named ruling party lawmaker Jeon Jae-hee as head of the welfare ministry, presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said.
The president also named former university head Ahn Byong-man as minister of education, science and technology, he said.
The shakeup was aimed at “making a new start” while providing continuity by allowing other Cabinet members another chance, he said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS