PPP warns that it could be destroying evidence of political retaliation
The conservative main opposition People Power Party (PPP) called on South Korea’s spy agency to halt its plan to replace its main server ahead of the presidential election. The PPP asserted that the National Intelligence Service (NIS) is trying to destroy evidence of the Moon Jae-in administration’s persecution of conservative figures under its “eradicating deep-rooted evils” campaign.
Senior officials from the PPP’s election team held an emergency press briefing on Monday and announced that it acquired information related to the NIS’s plans to replace its main server. Kwon Young-se, chief director of the election team, said that the “NIS is trying to replace the server out of nowhere with just a month left till the presidential election.” He added that “we acquired the information that it is going to spend 5 billion won [$4.17 million] to replace the server from the Office of Planning and Coordination, which oversees administrative work of the NIS.”
Kwon explained that the main server contains all the activity conducted by the NIS. “During the early years of the Moon Jae-in administration, while it was pursuing the eradicating deep-rooted evils campaign, it accessed the main server to persecute former NIS officials,” Kwon argued. “I am not sure if they are doing this since they now believe the administration will be changed for sure [to the conservative one], but this is just not right.”
In fact, soon after the Moon administration came to power, all three spy chiefs under the Park Geun-hye administration were arrested and found guilty of providing controversial special activity expenses allotted to the NIS to the presidential Blue House. This was unprecedented in South Korean history, and some conservative commentators argued that it was the kind of thing that happened following a coup d’etat.
Won Hee-ryong, the former governor of Jeju Province who also works for the PPP’s election team, told reporters that there are concerns among many experts that the NIS is abusing its power since it is in charge of national security information, including on North Korea. “The main server contains all the data related to the spy chief’s intervention in domestic affairs as well as other financial documents,” Won said. “We are facing the danger of destruction of evidence that shows how the NIS was involved in persecution against domestic figures.”
Kwon added that the NIS is explaining that it is replacing the server since it is old, but that cannot be the reason for the plan with just three months until a new administration comes to power. “I was told that there was no case where the NIS server was replaced during the end of any of previous presidents’ term,” Kwon said.
Kwon argued that the NIS is saying that it will transfer all the data stored in the current server to the new one, but in reality the spy agency can choose what they want to transfer.
“We don’t have any plan to investigate to eradicate ‘deep-rooted evils’ like the Moon administration by using the NIS information,” Kwon said. “We believe that the server should remain as it is because the NIS’s tasks, including those related to North Korea, should maintain continuity. The new administration should be able to review what went wrong and what went well during the previous administration to efficiently come up with new policies. Thus, there should be no attempt to destroy information related to what they have done by replacing the main server.”
Kwon added that it should be the next administration’s decision whether to replace the server or not.
When asked if the NIS had already begun replacing the server or when it would replace the server, Kwon responded that he is not aware of the details since he received the information over the weekend. “I know that it has not been replaced yet but I am not sure when the replacement process is going to begin.”
The NIS told the media that the PPP is spreading fake news ahead of the election. It released a statement shortly after the PPP’s press conference saying that it expresses its deepest regret over the PPP’s attempt to draw the agency into politics. “We do not have any plan to replace the main server this year,” it said.
It explained that the National Assembly has recently asked whether the NIS is planning on replacing the server and that it answered “we are pursuing replacement and expansion of the server related to managing electronic documents and operating its website.” It added that the PPP is exaggerating what they were told.
Meanwhile, South Korean presidential candidates officially registered to run for the presidency over the weekend. The official election campaign period begins on Tuesday.
Local pollster Kantar Korea announced on Monday that the PPP’s Yoon Seok-youl was leading leftist Lee Jae-myung by 38.8 percent to 33.2 percent. Ahn Cheol-soo from the moderate People’s Party followed with 8.4 percent, and the extreme leftist Justice Party’s Shim Sang-jung recorded 3.1 percent. The figure for Yoon rose 3.3 percentage points from two weeks ago and for Lee it rose 2.2 percentage points. According to the poll, 14.7 percent of respondents said they do not have any candidate they support or they are not sure who to support.
The pollster also asked how people perceived Yoon’s latest comments labeling the Moon administration “deep-rooted evils” that should be investigated. According to the poll, 39.8 percent of respondents said they agree with Yoon, while 38.4 percent said that Yoon should apologize.
The poll showed that 53.4 percent of respondents wanted the administration to be replaced with the new one, while 36.7 percent said that the current liberal administration should remain in power.
By age group, people in their 20s and 30s showed the most support for the replacement of the administration. 55.3 percent of those in their 20s and 57.9 percent of those in their 30s wanted a change of administration.
South Korea’s young voters are clearly disenchanted with the behavior of the ruling leftist Democratic Party, which is reflecting on DP candidate Lee Jae-myung.
