Top Legal Scholar Named S. Korea Premier : Asia: University president will take office at a time of political turmoil. He had repeatedly turned down the post.

President Kim Young Sam, in a move to give his government a more reformist face, appointed South Korea’s top legal scholar Friday to serve as his next prime minister.

Lee Soo Song, president of Seoul National University, the nation’s most prestigious educational institution, will take office at a time of intense political turmoil. Kim’s two immediate predecessors, former Presidents Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo, were recently jailed on mutiny and bribery charges.

Lee’s job will be to help maintain a stable government as the nation prepares for key parliamentary elections in April.

“Mr. Lee is highly respected, not only in academic circles but also in society,” presidential spokesman Yoon Yeo Joon said. “He is a strongly reform-minded person. President Kim Young Sam thought he would be the right person to pursue the policy of righting the wrongs of history.”

Lee, 58, was first offered the post Dec. 4 but repeatedly turned it down. He finally agreed Friday morning to accept it, Yoon said.

A former dean of the university’s College of Law, Lee has spent virtually his entire career at the school. He taught as a visiting scholar at the University of Pittsburgh in the early 1970s and in Paris in the late 1970s.

Lee said he accepted the post because it would have been “discourteous and cowardly” to continue turning it down. But he expressed concern about his own “lack of experience in administration.”

Real power in South Korea’s system is held by the president. The prime minister helps coordinate state affairs and transmits guidelines from the president to Cabinet members.

“Usually, the prime minister is rather passive. Lee Soo Song is not that kind of person,” said Han Sang Jin, a political scientist at Seoul National University.

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Kim has been trying to “get rid of the bad heritage of the past,” but “politically he has been surrounded by difficulties,” Han added. “He needs someone like Lee Soo Song because he is very clean. He has a high reputation as an intellectual who has preserved his integrity.”

Lee’s appointment is expected to be easily confirmed by the National Assembly no later than Monday. Kim is then expected to follow up with a sweeping reorganization of his Cabinet, also aimed at refurbishing the ruling party’s image and preparing for April elections.

Outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hong Koo and several other Cabinet members are expected to run as ruling party candidates in the parliamentary elections. To be eligible, they must leave the Cabinet.

Last week, in another step aimed at promoting the image of a fresh start, the ruling party changed its name to the New Korea Party.

Opposition parties reacted to the choice of Lee with praise.

“It is a rather well-selected appointment,” said Park Ji Won, spokesman for the main opposition National Congress for New Politics.

“Since Mr. Lee specialized in law and social justice,” Democratic Party spokesman Lee Kyu Taek said, “we hope he will contribute to restoring law and social justice in this country.”

By imprisoning Chun and Roh, both former generals, Kim has severely shaken this nation’s power structure. Roh’s bribery trial starts Monday, while Chun is due to be indicted no later than Friday for a 1979 mutiny that catapulted him to the presidency the next year.

Chun, held at Anyang Prison on the outskirts of Seoul, is continuing a hunger strike that he started on the day of his imprisonment, Dec. 3, consuming only roasted-barley tea and refusing solid food, a spokesman for the Seoul district prosecutor’s office said Friday.

Chun’s refusal to eat is seen here as a bid for public sympathy and a signal to his supporters in parliament and elsewhere that they should stand firm. There have been no signs of any shift in public sentiment in his favor, but disputes over the treatment of Chun could split the ruling party, which includes many members whose political roots lie with Chun and Roh.

Prosecutors are making progress in gathering evidence that Chun, like Roh, accumulated a huge slush fund while in office, Korean media reported. Roh confessed in late October to having collected a $653-million fund. Evidence indicates that Chun’s slush fund amounted to at least $390 million, the Korea Herald reported today.

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KBS Television reported Friday evening that prosecutors have identified 183 bank accounts, including “borrowed name” and “false name” accounts, believed to contain Chun’s money.

Prosecutors plan to indict Chun next week not only on charges of insurrection but also on bribery charges, KBS said.

In recent days, prosecutors have questioned many heads of Korea’s large business conglomerates about whether they contributed funds to Chun. Eight of these business tycoons are due to face trial with Roh on Monday for allegedly contributing bribes to Roh’s slush fund.