SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s new president is taking on a challenge that
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s new president is taking on a challenge that has defied all of his predecessors: reforming the big family-controlled conglomerates that dominate the economy.
While jobs are a top priority, strong public pressure following a corruption scandal that toppled his predecessor, Park Geun-hye, leaves him with little choice about going after the chaebol, as they are called.
“As I promised during my campaign, I will take care of the employment issue first. At the same time, I will take the initiative in reforming chaebol, ” Moon Jae-in said in his inauguration address Wednesday.
“Under the Moon Jae-in administration, the word meaning cozy relations between political and business circles will completely disappear, ” he proclaimed.
Moon knows firsthand that the job won’t be easy. He was a top aide in the administration of the late president Roh Moo-hyun’s, whose efforts to rein in the chaebol yielded disappointing results.
Conglomerates like Samsung and Hyundai play a huge role in South Korea and their founding families have complicated stock ownership structures, non-profit charity foundations and other arrangements to preserve their wealth and managerial influence.
Many view close, murky ties between politicians, bureaucrats and those big businesses as the reason corruption has thrived.
The public mood following former President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment over alleged influence peddling and bribery may give Moon a bit of a honeymoon.
“I’d like to hope that this government will be different, ” said Kim Seong-jin, a lawyer at People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, one of the largest civic groups in South Korea. “This is an essential task that the citizens are watching closely.”
Moon has promised to empower South Korea’s fair trade regulator to impose harsher punishments on companies that meddle in regulatory investigations and decisions. To do so he must drum up support from other parties. Passage of needed revisions of commercial and fair trade laws would require 60 more votes than the 120 out of 299 legislative seats controlled by his Democratic Party.
