President Moon’s appointees are still expected to control NEC
President Moon Jae-in’s ally Cho Hai-ju, the standing commissioner of the National Election Commission (NEC), gave up on plans to become general commissioner and said he would resign due to backlash from members of the commission. However, President Moon appears to still be attempting to hold influence over the commission with South Korea’s presidential election less than two months away.
On Friday, President Moon, who rejected Cho’s resignation earlier this week to possibly keep his ally in the NEC ahead of the March presidential election, accepted the resignation this time. News coverage on the story suggests the presidential Blue House is using a trick to prevent the opposition party from recommending a new member to replace Cho while maintaining the pro-Moon faction as a supermajority on the 9-member commission.
Cho changed his mind about resigning after receiving a request from his employees. All 2,900 employees of the NEC sent a joint statement calling on Cho to resign on Thursday. This is the first time in the NEC’s 60-year history that the employees protested against a commissioner serving consecutive terms.
In the statement, they wrote, “We express our hope that you will do well to follow our customs and practice,” calling on Cho to resign. The term of the standing commissioner, which is at the ministerial level, is three years. For other commissioners, it is six years. The standing commissioner oversees the NEC’s overall management and operation, so the individuals who served that role traditionally left the commission. If they remain in the NEC as a general commissioner, they would still be very influential over other commissioners.
The employees also said that Cho remaining as a general commissioner “would raise concerns that difficulties in election management will increase.” They added that Cho “began your term when it would be burdensome for the commission, and you have been saying that you feel sorry for us that we are being criticized for being politically biased.”
“We expected that your term coming to an end would become a turning point for us to restore the organization from being unfairly criticized for election fraud allegations and political bias, but if we lose that opportunity when the election is coming shortly, the trend of criticizing us and not accepting the election results from the outside would continue.”
A former senior-level official at the NEC told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper that “all employees of the NEC calling for the resignation of a commissioner is an unprecedented case for the NEC since its establishment in 1963.”
On Friday, Cho wrote a letter to the employees through the NEC’s intranet page telling them he will resign.
“I express my deepest apology for our employees who were hurt by having their neutrality and fairness suspected,” he said.
However, Cho blamed the current situation on the media and the opposition party. “The Blue House was conducting a review for appointing the next commissioner but the information about the individual was leaked which led to negative media reporting. In this situation, my term was coming to an end so the person who has the power of appointment rejected my resignation to avoid running into the chaos of holding a confirmation hearing ahead of the election.”
Cho argued that “I can bear political criticisms and attacks by some in the opposition party and media, but I cannot disregard our employees’ heartbroken feelings and pleas because of the controversy over neutrality.”
Cho has been a controversial figure since his appointment process. He worked for Moon Jae-in’s presidential campaign in 2017. Moon went ahead with Cho’s appointment although opposition parties refused to hold a confirmation hearing out of concern that he would not be capable of maintaining political neutrality.
Meanwhile, the media reported that there is a high chance that an existing general commissioner who was appointed by President Moon will be elected to the standing commissioner position left vacant after Cho’s resignation. The standing commissioner is elected by the commissioners.
An official from the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) told the media that “it appears that they are trying to elect someone from the current commissioners since they can face backlash by the opposition party if President Moon appoints someone from outside and goes through the confirmation hearing process.” The official added that the “Blue House is trying to influence the NEC.”
