National Assembly members Kim Deog Ryong and Park Sung Vum are being accused of taking bribes from potential candidates in upcoming elections. Their own Grand National Party (GNP) is calling on the prosecution to investigate, but the allegations themselves show you how serious corruption is in politics. There were grand new slogans about clean and open politics, but dirty money was openly changing hands all along, and you cannot help but feel a sense of despair. The situation is deplorable.
Kim Deog Ryong is one of the GNP's most prominent members. He was part of the long struggle for democracy and is a five-term parliamentarian. Until recently he was the GNP's floor leader and in that capacity worked with chairwoman Park Geun Hye to rid the party of its image as the "party that takes its illegal campaign donations by the truckload." He had been making preparations to run for party chairman at the GNP convention scheduled for after the regional elections of May 31. He is someone who should have been setting an example for others, and it is inexcusable he received a total of W440 million, over several occasions in February and March of this year, from the wife of a "Mr. Han," a man hoping to be chosen to run for the head of the neighborhood government in Seoul's Seocho-gu. Han says was unaware of his wife's actions, but that excuse is just typical behavior from politicians who pass the buck to their wives at times like these.
Formerly a news anchorman and current chairman of the GNP's organization for the city of Seoul, Park Sung Vum is also claiming he is innocent. However, there is no way he will be able to avoid legal and political responsibility, even for just for the facts that have already been established. Whether or not he immediately returned that cake box with W210 million in it or not is something the prosecution will have to figure out, but after receiving gifts of a fir coat, expensive brand-name handbags, and imported alcoholic drinks worth a total of around W20 million at the end of last year, he waited a full two months to turn it all over party headquarters, as he now claims. He is almost making an attempt at comedy when he said he held on to the stuff in because the gift-givers would think they had been ruled out if he returned it all. He is saying he was unable to return gifts meant as bribes because their givers would get angry, but that makes you want to know what the givers really have on him.
Kim and Park should not be making excuses. Their last act of service would be to be responsible enough to apologize for disappointing them and corrupting politics, and to then resign their Assembly seats. The GNP should be recognized for its resolute response to what has transpired, by being the first party in Korean history to request an investigation into two of its own members. However, there needs to be an explanatory apology and appropriate action by the party's leadership for waiting a month after being tipped off to take action, and for not being better at preventing such activity when others within (and even beyond) the party were already on the lookout for improper behavior.
The even bigger problem here is that these two cases are only the tip of the iceberg. If that is how much money the wannabe candidates who lost out in the local candidate selection process were handing out, you are forced to wonder what those who were chosen were up to. These days the political landscape is littered with rumors and anonymous letters about candidates at each and every local level. Rumors about the intense selection process for candidates for city and neighborhood councils, which will be paid positions from now on, are particularly rampant. One person preparing to run for the Daegu city council has already been arrested on charges of entertaining and giving money to a current council member.
The GNP is not the only party that people should be pointing their fingers at. The other parties also need to be on guard for illegal "donations" in the candidate selection process, because in districts where they dominate, being nominated automatically means being elected. The prosecution's investigations need to be thorough and wide-ranging when it comes to this matter.
The Hankyoreh, 14 April 2006.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
[Editorial] Anyone Else Receive 'Donations' From Candidates? |
