THE new South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, faces such urgent, formidable challenges that there is no time for a big celebration of victory.

The first of the multiple challenges is to restore national leadership, which was severely damaged by the scandal involving former president Park Geun-hye and her confidante Choi Soon-sil, leading to the subsequent removal of Park from office.

The political crisis caused by the scandal and Park’s impeachment was made worse by the confrontation of the anti-Park and pro-Park groups, which further widened already deep regional and ideological divides in the country.

The new president’s most urgent job is to address this divide, which presidential candidates had also exploited to garner voter support.

Another big challenge is that the new president assumes office without the traditional two-month transition period. The president is to assume office on Wednesday morning, which would mean everything has to be rushed — from settling into the office to appointing senior administration officials and setting top policy priorities.

Moreover, the new president launches government lacking control of the National Assembly, where none of the five parties holds a majority.

These and other challenges call upon the president to faithfully keep the promise to bring about cooperative governance.

The new cabinet to be formed in the coming weeks must be totally different from past ones.

It would be better if the new cabinet includes people from a pool so broad that it could be called a coalition government. If not, the president should include enough people beyond his own partisan, political and regional support groups.

The president might face resistance from supporters for bringing in people from other camps, but this would be outweighed but the benefits of sharing some power with opposition figures.

A leader cannot win everything. We already witnessed what happened when the most recent leaders — Roh Moo-hyun, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye — failed to break out of a “winner-takes-all” framework in the early stage of their presidencies.

The new chief executive should be humble, not least because the president is taking office under an extraordinary situation.

One piece of advice that the leader needs to keep in mind is that the reorganisation of ministries and other key government offices should be minimised.

Most government reorganisation initiatives by past presidents — even with more time for preparation during the transition period — ended in failure.

The president should be frank and bold in scrapping some election promises and pledges.

Like rival candidates, the new leader’s election manifesto included many populist policy proposals.

As a leader who came to power amid an unprecedented political crisis, the president should not direct energy to delving into the past or settling old scores.

There are many daunting challenges for the president to tackle: tension over North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations and the economy, to name a few. Sights need to be set on the present and future, not on the past.

On their part, the opposition and the media need to be prudent and patient in dealing with the new president and administration. If no serious blunders are made, the president should be given time to settle into the job. The nation cannot afford any more internal conflicts.

The nation and its citizens have suffered too much over the past months. The election of the new president should end the suffering and mark a new start.

And the entire nation — including those who did not vote for him — should stand behind the president so that the new leader can move in the right direction.

—The Korea Herald / South Korea

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2017