Headache awaits President Park who returns from Latin America

Headache awaits President Park who returns from Latin America. April. 27, 2015 07:19. egija@donga.com.

“President Park Geun-hye continued a hard schedule while relying on intravenous fluids and shots due to swollen tonsils, stomachache and fever,” presidential spokesman Min Kyung-wook said on Saturday morning (local time) in Sao Paulo. It was unusual for the spokesman to release the president’s health conditions, which indicates that the president has many issues to tackle after returning home.

The spokesman said, “President Park told her entourage at the meeting with Korean immigrants in Columbia on April 18 that it was fortunate for her not to have altitude sickness (because of the high altitude of the capital city of Bogota) but it is now coming to the throat.”

President Park is said to have barely slept before she headed for the tour on April 16. As it was the first anniversary of the Sewol ferry disaster, the president thought seriously about her schedule until the last minute. As the public called for the resignation of Prime Minister Lee Wan-koo who faced accusations of accepting bribes from a businessman, the president met with Kim Moo-sung, the leader of the ruling Saenuri Party, right before her departure to change the political atmosphere.

Nonetheless, President Park had to accept the worst case scenario: the prime minister’s offer to resignation during her overseas visit. Upon returning home on Monday, the president has to accept Lee`s resignation and select a prime minister nominee who the public can accept. She also needs to handle the opposition parties, which call for independent prosecution for the bribe scandal and the resignation of Lee Byung-ki, presidential chief of staff. The result of the upcoming by-election on April 29 will also have a significant impact on the Park administration. In addition, the president needs to show achievements in reform agendas including a public employee pension reform.

President Park has no schedule until this Wednesday to take rest. The president has no cabinet meeting or a meeting with senior secretaries. The real intention is that she would distance herself from political debates until the result of the by-election is released. President Park is likely to search for a prime minister nominee while watching the investigation into the bribe scandal. Whether the president can make a breakthrough in the largest crisis in her third year as a president depends on the nomination of a right prime minister.

President Park attended at “Fashion & Passion,” an event combining a fashion show and a K-Pop performance, her last schedule of the state visit, at a hotel in Sao Paolo on Saturday.

Before the event, Shin Hye-ja, the first generation of Korean immigrants to Brazil who visited Cheong Wa Dae at the invitation of late President Park Chung-hee in 1975, attended a meeting with Korean immigrants. President Park, who then served as the first lady, wore her mother’s cherished yellow hanbok (Korean traditional dress), saying, “I’m pleased that my father’s promise to make a rich country is kept.” Shin said, “I’d never imaged that Korea could advance to the degree that it can have an impact on the world. Korea is great, indeed.”

Ahn Jong-beom, the senior presidential secretary for economic affairs, said that the president’s greatest achievements during her visit to Latin America are e-commerce contracts signed with largest local retail companies and Korea’s entry into the telemedicine market (12 trillion won or 11.12 billion U.S. dollars).