Handover team to start policy work on Monday

President-elect Roh Moo-hyun has completed his selection of members of his transition team; academics who favor income redistribution and government intervention in the economy form the bulk of the team. He named 16 additional members to the team yesterday.

The 25 team members will formally start work Monday, the same day that National Assembly party floor leaders have agreed to convene a special plenary session to consider legislation formalizing and funding the transition team.

The Assembly will also deliberate legal changes to allow the president-elect to nominate a prime minister before taking office. The prime minister alone has the legal right to nominate cabinet ministers, and the new administration wants him in place early to minimize the time that there are no hands at the helm of the government ministries. The two major parties in the Assembly also agreed to form a committee to arrange early hearings on Mr. Roh's nominee for prime minister.

Young, reform-oriented university professors and researchers predominate in the transition team. Lim Chae-jung, named earlier as chairman of the committee, said nearly all the members have participated in drawing up Mr. Roh's election pledges.

"Intellectuals are most responsive to reform and change," Mr. Lim said. "The members share common views with Mr. Roh's philosophy and sense of comradeship."

Most of them give priority to economic distribution and believe government intervention is effective in reviving the market. Several members of the team for diplomacy, unification and security are veterans of work on President Kim Dae-jung's sunshine policy of engagement with the North.

Mr. Roh apparently ruled out naming his close aides to the team, and one confidant said he had not been given the opportunity to recommend anyone to Mr. Roh for the committee.

The president-in-waiting is also reportedly looking at strategies to regain control of the National Assembly for his Millennium Democratic Party.

Mr. Roh has said that he wants to overhaul the nation's legislative structure to form districts that send more than one representative to the national body; he evidently hopes that in some districts where his party has significant but not majority support, the MDP could send second-place finishers to the Assembly.

An MDP aide said Mr. Roh believes the MDP cannot become the majority party while regionalism pervades Korea's voting patterns. But such a system might favor the MDP because of the strong regionalism in his core area, the Jeolla provinces. While the MDP could gain seats with second-place finishes in other areas, the 90-plus percent majorities the MDP routinely delivers in the Jeollas would probably make it impossible for a non-MDP assemblyman to be elected there.

by Choi Hoon