Kim: Chance lost for female nominee

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Kim: Chance lost for female nominee

President Kim Dae-jung is expected to name a new candidate for prime minister next week, but it is not clear if he is considering naming another woman to the post.

He also said that his nominee would be the acting prime minister ?that is, perform the duties of the office ?before confirmation hearings take place in the Assembly. His first nominee, Chang Sang, was rejected by the National Assembly Wednesday; before the vote, the opposition had complained that it was unconstitutional for an appointee to perform his or her duties before confirmation.

The president called off a one-day vacation Thursday to meet with his cabinet. "It is a pity that the first woman prime minister in Korea was not confirmed," he said.

The opposition has called for the deputy prime minister for finance and economy to temporarily serve as prime minister until a new cabinet leader is named and confirmed; the Blue House rejected that idea, saying that such an official pinch-hitter would be a bad idea. Despite the relative lack of power in the post, some political observers agreed, saying there would be confusion in the government without someone to mediate interagency disputes and oversee the 11 government agencies affiliated with the prime minister's office. Those agencies include the Ministry of Planning and Budget and the Financial Supervisory Service.

On the political front, the Millennium Democratic Party, President Kim's former party, tried to use issues similar to those that doomed Ms. Chang's nomination to attack the Grand National Party's presidential nominee, Lee Hoi-chang. The MDP questioned his integrity and wants to highlight his alleged real estate speculation, his daughter-in-law's travel to the United States to give birth -- to get U.S. nationality for her child, the MDP said -- and the fact that Mr. Lee's father served as a prosecutor's secretary during the Japanese colonial period.

Meanwhile, the GNP crowed about the number of Millennium Democrats that it said had voted against Ms. Chang. Nam Kyung-pil, the party's spokesman, put the number at 40 to 50, and said that the vote against Ms. Chang was a reaction to President Kim's poor choice of candidates for senior positions.

The Assembly rejected Ms. Chang's nomination 142-100, but the ballot was secret. Kim Seong-ho, a Millennium Democrat who called for a "no" vote at a party meeting Wednesday, estimated that 20 to 30 MDP lawmakers, mostly younger members, voted against her.

Confirmation votes and votes of no confidence in the government are not individually recorded, so most voters will not know which side their representatives were on. "It is regrettable that the problem of secret voting has not become an issue," said Kim Min-yeong, an official at the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, an advocacy group.

by Kim Chong-hyuk

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