[Editorial] Drafted Into Uri Party Against Their Will

Some 150 elderly people in Seoul's Gwanakgu were have discovered that someone registered them as members of the ruling Uri Party and that membership dues were being automatically withdrawn from their bank accounts every month. The news is just shocking. There has been a lot of controversy about the various negative side effects of the "mainstay member" program, but this situation is shockingly different.

It is an unmistakable violation of laws on political parties to make someone a member despite his wishes. Furthermore the technique employed was shameful. It was like stealing from the poor; the secret extortion of money from elderly people in difficult economic circumstances is the ultimate in shamelessness. Even more a problem is the fact that their personal information had been so easily available. A considerable number of them had those membership dues taken from the bank accounts into which they receive "transit allowances" from the government, something that would be impossible if the information had not been leaked from the local neighborhood government office, which oversees the allowances. Uri needs to do more than just an inquiry; it needs to take a harder stance and call on the prosecution to investigate.

This calls Uri's stated determination to reform Korean politics into question, because ironically it is the "mainstay member" program that Uri began as a way to achieve cleaner politics through regular membership payments from an increased number of members ironically turns out to have encouraged corruption. There is nothing to guarantee that evil practice of making "ghost members" was limited to just one specific area.

There is, of course, no need to discredit the whole program just because of what has happened. Part of the problem is that the old culture of politics continues right along even after you implement new ways of operating. Still, Uri must not interpret this affair as little more than disparity between the culture and the system. It needs to find a way to thoroughly eradicate the political profiteers and fix the structural problems in its new membership program.

The Hankyoreh, 10 January 2006.

[Translations by Seoul Selection]