1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites
Live TV
Latest audioLatest videos
In focus
Russia's war in UkraineIsrael-Hamas warIndia elections

S. Korea's new prime minister

May 22, 2014

South Korean President Park Geun-hye has named a former supreme court judge as the country's new prime minister. The previous incumbent resigned over the government response to the Sewol ferry disaster.

https://p.dw.com/p/1C4Nl
Ahn Dae Hee (L), former Supreme Court justice, walking alongside South Korean President Park Geun-hye in Seoul, South Korea, 02 May 2014. South Korean President Park Geun Hye on 22 May 2014 nominated Ahn Dae Hee as new prime minister, nearly a month after the previous prime minister resigned in the wake of one of the country's worst maritime disasters. Ahn Dae Hee, 59, is to attend a parliamentary confirmation hearing before taking up the post. EPA/YONHAP SOUTH KOREA OUT
Image: picture-alliance/dpa

The South Korean president on Thursday named Ahn Dai-hee as the country's new prime minister.

Ahn's appointment comes in the wake of former premier Chung Hon-won announcing his resignation at the end of April. Chung stood down because of perceived mistakes in the way that the government responded to the Sewol ferry disaster.

At least 286 people died after the Sewol capsized and sank on April 16 during a supposedly routine journey from the mainland port of Incheon to the holiday island of Jeju. Only 172 people out of 476 on board were rescued, with victims' relatives claiming that the coastguard's response was slow and ineffective.

Park, whose ratings plummeted in the wake of the disaster, dismantled the national coastguard as a result.

'Nominated to eliminate ill practices'

The president's spokesman Min Kyung-wook said Ahn would be mandated to oversee reforms to government bureaucracy. "He was nominated to eliminate ill practices of our society and the bureaucracy revealed through the Sewol accident," Min was reported as saying.

The Yonhap news agency also reported that Park had accepted the resignations of National Intelligence Service director Nam Jae Joon and national security adviser Kim Jang Soo. The move was ostensibly aimed at helping to restore national confidence in Park's government.

rc/tj (dpa, Reuters)