Roh names academics to run the transition

President-elect Roh Moo-hyun yesterday named Kim Jin-pyo, head of the Office for Government Policy Coordination at the Prime Minister's Office, as deputy head of his presidential transition committee. He also named six heads of individual working groups to the team, and said the group will start working Monday. Academics dominated the list of group leaders.

Mr. Roh also repeated his pledge to transfer some administrative power out of the president's office, saying he would begin to do so after the 2004 legislative election.

Mr. Roh named Lee Byung-wan, deputy chief policymaker of the Millennium Democratic Party, as the director of the committee's planning and coordination subcommittee and Yoon Young-kwan, a professor of diplomacy at Seoul National University, as director of the unification, diplomacy and security subcommittee.

Mr. Roh has also decided to emphasize the generational shift he says he represents in Korean politics by setting up a formal mechanism to solicit public comments on policy matters using the Internet. Lee Jong-oh, a professor of Keimyung University, was named to head the center that will monitor and compile those comments. An aide to Mr. Roh said if the citizen participation center proves successful, it will become a permanent feature of his administration.

The president-elect named Lee Jong-woo, a professor of Kyungpook National University, as director of one of two economic subcommittee and Professor Kim Dae-hwan of Inha University as head of a second. He named Kwon Ki-hong of Yeungnam University director of the social, cultural and women's subcommittee and Kim Byong-joon of Kookmin University as director of the political affairs subcommittee.

Lim Chae-jung, named earlier as chairman of the transition committee, said the appointment of Mr. Kim as his deputy is a measure to ensure stability in the transfer of power. He praised Mr. Kim as being well-informed about current government policies. Mr. Lim said the committee staff would be composed of specialists with real-world experience. He also said that a separate committee would be formed to begin planning for the relocation of Korea's administrative capital from Seoul to the Chungcheong province region. The pledge to move the bureaucracy out of Seoul was one of the major pledges of his campaign.

Most of the transition committee officials are in their 40s and 50s and were involved in drawing up Mr. Roh's campaign pledges.

by Choi Hoon, Rah Hyun-cheol