Political Party in an Uproar over Criminal Records

A 'war on convicts' is taking place between ruling and opposition parties. Both parties are concentrating all their resources to make the best out of the unveiled criminal records of candidates, evaluating possible gains and losses. This is especially true for some political parites that are launching full fledged war on rival candidates by trying to dig up even jucier details.

The leadership of the Grand National Party (GNP) is sighing with relief for it has a far lower number of ex-convicts in their party as compared to the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP).

However, the GNP also expressed their concern that a shift away from the issue of Kim Dae-jung's administration to individual candidates is undesirable and can be seen as a shift from a focus on polocy to character attacks.

Meanwhile, the MDP seems to express regret over its members' criminal records for the party did not gain as much of an advantage as they had hoped. Among its 45 candidates with records, 35 were revealed to have offences against state affairs and this is predicted as likely to be a stumbling block for the party's future. These candidates could become a liability because their previous antigovernment activities could offend conservative voters, like people in their 50s or 60s or conservative areas like Chungchung Province.

The United Liberal Democrats (ULD) are busy reminding people that, of the major parties, it has the lowest number of convicts. On the other hand, the party also contained the highest numbers of officials involved in corruption, violations of economic regulations, and personal attacks on the reputation of others.

The Democratic People's Party (DPP) may have even more candidates with unfortunate past histories, but the party says there wasn't much damage done because most of the candidates on the list are in areas the DPP did not believe they could win.

One official of the MDP criticized the GNP stating, "While our party acted as champion of democracy and fought against a dictatorship, suffering in cold cells, the GNP candidates, under the shield of the dictatorial regime, did nothing but evaded taxes and dodged military service.

All 35 of the MDP candidates with records related to violations of state affairs are expected to hold a joint press conference to explain their records and ensure that their can be no claim that their activities were in support of North Korean philosophy. The GNP and ULD lashed out at these candidates saying that they are, "Off-spring of the Chusa group (which was in support of North Korean policy)."

Lee Won-chang, the GNP spokesman, stated that 5 MDP candidates, who are running in metroplitan areas and who were all in their 30s, are "5 men from Chusa groups" and claimed that they were actually in support of North Korea's argument that it was South Korea who was behind the KAL airplane bombing.

The United Liberal Democrats strengthened its conservative stance, insisting that the true character of the MDP was that of a violator of state affairs.

The DDP, however, distanced itself from the slandering of other parties by making a grand apology to the public. The party stated that due to its hasty formation, the party did not have adequate time to examine every candidates' records and said that unacceptable candidates shall be removed from the party.

by Park Sng-Hee