DP appears to be scared, calling it political retaliation
Top conservative presidential candidate Yoon Seok-youl’s vow to investigate the current Moon Jae-in administration is being met by panic from South Korean leftists.
Yoon said that he will go after alleged abuse of power and corruption in the Moon administration if he wins the March 9 election. He referred to the administration with the term “deep-rooted evils,” which liberals have used to attack the previous Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye administrations.
During the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper interview published on Wednesday morning, Yoon said, “Of course, there will be an investigation” into the current Moon administration. Yoon said the probe won’t be personal, but a legitimate action under the criminal justice system. He criticized the ruling party and the Moon administration for defending their investigations of Moon’s predecessors, while arguing that any investigation of them by Moon’s successor would be a political vendetta.
Yoon previously served as South Korea’s prosecutor general. He led investigations into former Presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak for Moon under his so-called “eradicating deep-rooted evils” campaign. Yoon said he felt uncomfortable prosecuting the former presidents from the party he is now part of.
“If you think you made a great accomplishment as a prosecutor by indicting former presidents, that means you are a fool,” Yoon said. “Making a legal decision against a former president is painful. When they were imprisoned, Park was a woman and Lee was an aged man. I was deeply worried.”
Yoon said that the same measures should be taken against the Moon administration in order to be fair to the former presidents. “An investigation led by the prosecution is conducted after being monitored by the court and the Ministry of Justice,” he said. “The president will not intervene in the investigation.”
When asked about some people’s concern that Yoon would turn the country into a “Republic of Prosecution,” Yoon said such an argument is absurd. “They excluded the prosecutor general [me] from doing my duty,” he said. “The President or Justice Minister can just simply trample the prosecution whenever they want to. The DP has no right to use the phrase like the Republic of Prosecution.”
Soon after Yoon’s interview was published, the presidential Blue House released a rare statement calling his comments unpleasant. A key official from the Blue House met with reporters and said Yoon’s comments that the current administration committed many crimes using the prosecution were “very inappropriate” and that they feel “very unpleasant.” The official added that “even if this is election season, there are certain lines that they have to keep.”
The Blue House said before that it will keep its distance from the ongoing political issues to maintain neutrality during the election. Its official statement of discomfort toward Yoon shows that it took his comments very seriously.
About 30 minutes after the Blue House released the statement, the DP’s election team held a press briefing calling Yoon’s comments a “declaration of political retaliation.” Woo Sang-ho, chief director of the DP election team, argued that they are “thoughtless words by a prosecutor who enjoyed privilege for his whole life.” Woo added that Yoon is trying to divide people and cause conflict for his political gain.
Lee Hae-chan, the former head of the DP, wrote a column on the liberal candidate Lee Jae-myung’s communication platform. He asked “How dare Yoon even use the phrase deep-rooted evils of the Moon Jae-in administration?”
He argued that the current conservative party descends from the former military dictatorship and corrupt prosecutors who abused their sole right to investigate and indict people.
Yoon met with reporters later that day and asked them, “what is there for them to feel unpleasant?”
“What I was saying was once the new administration comes to power and finds wrongdoings of the previous administration, they will conduct investigations into them based on the normal criminal justice system,” Yoon explained. “It is wrong to frame what they have done as eradicating deep-rooted evils and what others are trying to do as retaliation.” He said if they think they have not done anything wrong, they would not need to feel unpleasant.
Lee Jun-seok, the head of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP), appeared on a TV program and asked, “What is wrong with eradicating deep-rooted evils?”
“Those who will feel uncomfortable after hearing ‘eradicating deep-rooted evils’ would be those who are deep-rooted evils,” Lee said.
Won Il-hee, a spokesperson from the PPP, released a statement saying that the reaction from the DP and the Moon administration remind him of the phrase “a guilty conscience needs no accuser.”
“Yoon made it clear that even if he becomes president, he will not personally direct investigations of the prosecution,” Won said. “I think it would be better for them to beg him to let go of their wrongdoings instead of falsely framing his theoretical and logical comments as political retaliation.”
The DP appears scared of facing the consequences of South Korea’s legal system after Moon leaves office.
