SEOUL, South Korea — President Park Geun-hye, whose approval ratings have fallen since an April ferry disaster that left hundreds dead, suffered a new political blow on Tuesday as her second consecutive nominee for prime minister stepped aside, amid an uproar over his suggestion that Korea’s colonization by Japan had been “God’s will.”
“Since I was appointed as prime minister, this country has plunged even deeper into severe confrontation and divide,” the nominee, Moon Chang-keuk, said at a news conference. “I have decided that I should help President Park by stepping down of my own will.”
Mr. Moon, once a well-known conservative newspaper columnist, was Ms. Park’s second nominee for prime minister to withdraw before his confirmation hearings in the National Assembly could even begin. The first, Ahn Dae-hee, a former Supreme Court justice, stepped aside last month because of a controversy over his post-retirement earnings.
Each had been nominated to replace Prime Minister Chung Hong-won, whoresigned over the government’s handling of the April 16 ferry sinking, in which more than 300 people were killed, most of them students.
The post of prime minister is a largely ceremonial one in South Korea. But the botched appointments cast doubt on Ms. Park’s ability to choose a candidate who could pass the test of public opinion in a country deeply divided over her administration.
Mr. Moon’s trouble began when a national television network, KBS, broadcast footage from a 2011 lecture he had given at his Presbyterian church in Seoul.
“We may protest, ‘Why did God make this nation a colony of Japan?’ ” Mr. Moon, an elder at his church, said from the pulpit, according to the video, which circulated widely online. “But as I said earlier, there is God’s will in it.”
Mr. Moon also said that the Korean elite had been hopelessly corrupt and inefficient before colonization began in 1910. “Laziness, lack of independence and a tendency to depend on others were in our national DNA,” he said in the speech. God’s message, he said, was that the Koreans “needed hardship,” in the form of colonization.
Mr. Moon also said that “in retrospect, it was also God’s will” for Korea to be divided into a Communist North and a pro-American South after Japan’s rule ended with its defeat in World War II. Noting that there were many Communists among Korea’s elite at the time, Mr. Moon said, “Given the way we were then, had Korea been liberated as a whole, it would have been Communized.”
Critics interpreted the remarks as a prime-minister-to-be’s justifying his own country’s colonization. They argued that nationalist politicians in Japan, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, would use his remarks to strengthen the case that colonial rule was not as bad as many Koreans have made it out to be. Relations between Japan and South Korea have chilled in recent years, with historical and territorial issues at the root of many disputes.
Mr. Moon expressed regret over what he called a “misunderstanding” arising from “a little gap between what can be said inside a church and sentiments of ordinary people.” But he said that political opponents had distorted comments he had made to a private audience.
The uproar led to Mr. Moon’s being labeled “pro-Japanese,” a toxic political epithet in South Korea. Even some prominent members of Ms. Park’s party joined the opposition in demanding that Mr. Moon step down.
Historical issues involving Japan’s rule over Korea have been problematic for Ms. Park. Her father, the former dictator Park Chung-hee, was once an officer in Japan’s Imperial Army.
During Ms. Park’s presidential campaign in 2012, her most outspoken critics cited that part of her family history to argue that she could not be trusted.
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