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Stop the dirty mud fight before it’s too late

Published: 28 Nov. 2024, 19:24

The brewing controversy over the provocative comments posted on the official chat room of the People Power Party (PPP) is deepening further after first lady Kim Keon Hee’s aunt joined the unprecedented battle in Korea’s modern history. After Shin Ji-ho — a senior official of the governing party close to PPP leader Han Dong-hoon — denounced her for “swearing at Han’s family members,” Kim Hye-sup, the first lady’s aunt and a pastor, posted coarse messages squarely attacking the senior party official on social media on Wednesday and Thursday. “If you want to attack us, please do it correctly,” she wrote. Earlier, the aunt criticized Han’s aides in the party for trying to find any dirt on the first lady’s family.

The aunt went so far as to attack Han, the PPP leader, for betraying the first lady who “has helped Han over the past 20 years” since he served as a junior prosecutor under President Yoon Suk Yeol when he was his senior. The aunt even called the PPP leader a “person who ferociously criticizes the first lady only to realize his personal dream to become the president of the country.” She also said, “Can you really call it ‘freedom of speech’ even after your family members first used curses against the first lady?” We are dumbfounded that heavyweights of the governing party and their family members brazenly exchanged such substandard words against one another. If this is not a farce, what really is?

We seriously wonder if the PPP and government have been led by such strange people in the past. That’s not all. Rep. Kim Meen-geon — a female member of the Supreme Council of the PPP and an ally to President Yoon Suk Yeol — appeared on a YouTube channel earlier this week and said that she had read a news report that Han, the PPP leader, would file a complaint with the police about a party member who had demanded Han’s resignation in the official chat room. She made the accusation simply based on the news report. On Thursday, she took a step back and said, “If the news is wrong, the responsibility falls on the reporter and his news sources.”

The senior aide to the PPP leader also can’t avoid responsibility as he brought in even family members of the president to the internal fight. We are embarrassed at the vulgar language the aunt of the first lady used against the PPP leader and his aide. We wonder what the office for the first lady has been doing so far.

Rep. Choo Hyung-ho, floor leader of the PPP, has urged lawmakers to refrain from making public comments or debates. The governing party has been inundated with all those unrefined comments from its members whether on television or YouTubes. What’s the raison d’être of the spokesperson? We urge the party to find ways to earn trust from people.