Is it normal to hear about a lame duck already?

Chung-Ang University Honorary Professor Lee Sang-don, who served at the Saenuri Party`s emergency countermeasures committee in 2012, said in a media interview that it appears that the government is now hardly able to conduct any reform. He said the lame duck syndrome appears to have surfaced already. There will be people unable to agree to opinions that the Park Geun-hye administration, a mere 16 months since the inauguration, has already entered the lame duck phase, which refers to loss of power nearing the end of an official’s term. Yet the reality is that it is difficult to deny that the public’s faith is wavering in the Park administration’s ability to run state affairs.

In a Gallup Korea survey announced on Friday, positive appraisals of President Park’s conducting state affairs fell one more percentage point from the previous week, to 42 percent. In Seoul, that number has broken the 40 percent mark, known as the approval rate under which the rates never go down, to 37 percent. The top factor for the negative evaluations is personnel management. Losing the support base is a sign of the lame duck phenomenon, and it is pointed out that the Presidential Office’s response to the issue of former Prime Minister Nominee Moon Chang-keuk has shaken even rational conservatives.

One of the leading contenders in the Saenuri Party national convention, Rep. Kim Moo-sung, said on Friday that unrestrained power falls into self-righteousness, and that President Park is showing signs of becoming self-righteousness. This could be a populism comment targeting the upcoming party convention. Yet we must not oversee Kim’s pointing out the narrowness and closed-door nature of personnel appointments. Kim himself is from Busan and he said it is unreasonable that the second in power to the ninth are all from Busan and/or South Gyeongsang Province, which is one of the traditional bases of power for the ruling party, often dubbed “PK,” initials of former Korean names for the regions. The situation leads to criticism that the leaders are more interested in maintaining their hold on power than on effectively running state affairs.

President Park’s retention of Prime Minister Chung and installing a senior secretary office for personnel affairs appear to stem from her intention to put an end to the controversy over personnel management. However, more than a few Koreans are disappointed that no-one is taking the responsibility nor apologizing for the series of failures in human resource management, which can be seen as the starting-point of running state affairs. Some even say that soccer Coach Hong Myung-bo has at least apologized for failing to lead his team into even one winning match, resulting in the elimination of the Korean soccer team from the group stage of the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament.

The ruling Saenuri Party is also seeing comments on party reform, that it must stop being a mama’s boy party that hides behind the president (Rep. Kim Young-woo) and that the series of personnel-related fiascos in the Park Geun-hye administration is due to the backwardness of the party (Rep. Rhee In-je). If President Park and the Presidential Office fail to change, then at least the ruling party should reflect public sentiment and transform itself into a ruling party that leads the government. If the ruling party does not change, then the lame duck phenomenon will become real, and take the wind out of sales from Park’s vow to transform the Republic of Korea so as not to make the Sewol ferry sinking tragedy to be in vain. The Park administration still has three and a half years. Many members of the public want to hear rational responses by the Presidential Office and the Saenuri Party before it is too late.