Keeping distance with the presidential office

The suspicion arose that Lee Jin-bok, President Yoon Suk Yeol’s senior secretary for political affairs, asked Rep. Tae Yong-ho, a People Power Party (PPP) lawmaker, to advocate the president’s effort to improve Korea-Japan relations in return for nominating him for a seat in the next parliamentary elections. The suspicion was trigged by MBC’s broadcast on March 9 of a conversation between the lawmaker and his aides.

The audio clip contains the presidential secretary’s assurance to the legislator not to worry about his nomination for the April 10 election next year if he praises President Yoon’s diplomacy toward Japan. Rep. Tae reportedly raised his voice to support the president through his interviews with the media. If proven true, the case bodes badly for the future of the PPP. (Former president Park Geun-hye was sentenced to two years in jail for meddling in nominations of candidates in a legislative election.)

After the news broke, Rep. Kim Woong, a PPP lawmaker not loyal to the president, urged the presidential office to replace the senior secretary immediately, as “he committed a grave crime of intervening in party affairs.” Kim demanded the case be sent to the prosecution. In reaction, PPP leader Kim Gi-hyeon requested the Ethics Committee look into the suspicion together with another case involving Rep. Tae’s controversial remarks over the Gwangju Uprising in 1980.

Both Rep. Tae and the senior presidential secretary denied all the suspicion surrounding them. But many people don’t believe what they said. In the PPP’s national convention in March, the party leader was elected entirely based on the votes of party members without counting in the results of public survey as in the past, which provoked suspicion that the presidential office stepped in to change the election rules to help Rep. Kim Gi-hyeon, a Yoon loyalist, get elected as the new party leader. The senior presidential secretary even pressured Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, a former presidential candidate, to withdraw his candidacy for the party leadership in the convention.

The leak of the private conversation between Rep. Tae and his aide is also suspicious. Party insiders even link it to the need for the representative to lower the level of punishment for his defamatory remarks about the pro-democracy movement in Gwangju by giving the impression that he acts in sync with the president. The PPP must get to the bottom of the suspicion.

The latest controversy basically originated with the party overly leaning toward the presidential office in Yongsan. Unless the PPP keeps a healthy distance with the presidential office, this kind of suspicion can arise anytime.