&#91EDITORIALS&#93MDP’s sinking credibility

The prosecution’s bribery and fraud investigation into the Goodmorning City real estate development project has turned a page with its focus on the charge that the chairman of the Millennium Democratic Party, Chyung Dai-chul, received hundreds of millions of won from the developer above the campaign donation Mr. Chyung has acknowledged accepting. Prosecutors plan to summon Mr. Chyung for questioning to determine if the payment was made in return for favors.
Mr. Chyung has said that there was nothing improper about the political donation he received from Goodmorning City, which, he said, was processed properly and for which a receipt was issued. But what about the new payments he is now suspected of having received?
The Millennium Democratic Party has recently been called the “vegetable party.” It is entirely caught up in debates about whether it should form a new party. Policy issues that affect people’s lives cannot be further from their minds. It has no credibility now that its leader is directly implicated in a bribery allegation. It is time for Mr. Chyung to come clean with the facts and talk about what he intends to do.
Suspicions of wrongdoing involving Goodmorning City are endless. They include inappropriate loans, bribery of politicians to acquire a construction company, giving powerful people priority to buy prized real estate and even favorable treatment by the prosecution. The prosecution reportedly questioned Goodmorning City’s chairman, Yoon Chang-yeol, in June and July last year on embezzlement charges but shelved the case for nearly a year. With charges of wrongdoing against Mr. Chyung and fresh allegations of involvement by former President Kim Dae-jung’s brother, it is not difficult to be suspicious of the prosecution’s delay.
The prosecution must not favor powerful people within the current or past government and dig up all the facts. That will be an opportunity to regain its reputation. It must uncover how the one-year delay was possible and hold responsible everyone who was instrumental in it.