The ruling party’s leading presidential hopeful Park Geun-hye has sued the floor leader of the main opposition party for libel over allegations of Park’s possible involvement in a massive bribery scandal related to a suspended savings bank, officials said Tuesday.

The suit came after Rep. Park Jie-won of the Democratic United Party (DUP) claimed last week Park Geun-hye met with a key lobbyist for the now-suspended Busan Savings Bank on several occasions, calling on the prosecution to investigate possible irregularities in the course of those meetings.

The presidential hopeful also sued a confidant of the lobbyist and two co-hosts of the political satire program “Naneun Ggomsuda” for making similar allegations on the show, said an official close to Park Geun-hye.

Park Geun-hye has denied any ties to the lobbyist, Park Tae-kyu.

“I don’t know him at all and never met him,” Park told reporters at the National Assembly. “They are continuing a negative (campaign) again and again with falsehoods like this. Political leaders and the media should tell the truth to the people, but they are spreading falsehoods repeatedly. That’s why I took the legal action.”

Park also said that she hopes prosecutors will carry out a thorough investigation into the case and make its results public in detail so as to help uproot such negative campaign practices.

She filed the suit with the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office on Monday.  [Yonhap]

Could you imagine how different US political campaigns could be if politicians could sue one another for libel?

The internal feud within the opposition Unified Progressive Party has turned into a fact-checking fight over whether the primary’s online voting was rigged.

The country’s third-largest party, which earned seven geographic constituencies and six proportional seats in the April election, is embroiled in controversy over whether their proportional primary was fairly conducted.

The primary was held in March and about 90 percent of the ballots were cast through online voting.

The party’s largest faction argues the primary wasn’t rigged, but nonfaction members including two co-chairs say there were apparently skewed votes and the leadership and proportional candidates should step down.

Jo Jun-ho, the party’s internal probe team leader, showed evidence to prove vote-rigging of the online voting to local media for the first time.

In an interview with OhmyNews on Wednesday, Jo showed 30 suspicious online votes, saying they were apparently made by ghost voters who weren’t registered on the electoral roll.

First, Jo said there were at least five votes that came from the same last seven digits of an identification number and same IP address.

In Korea, the 13-digit ID number consists of the six digits of a citizen’s birth date and the last seven digits are sex, regional code, order of birth registration and a random digit.

Statistically, it’s very rare to have an identical final seven digits of an ID number. If the five people indeed cast ballots, it means: their gender is the same; they were born in the same electoral district; their birth was registered in the same order; they have the same random digit; they all joined the UPP; and they voted through one IP address for a certain candidate. Jo said the five voters aren’t blood-related.

Jo also said that some voters wrote their last seven digits as 2000000.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more about the voter fraud at the link.

South Korea’s parliament approved a key revision to the National Assembly Act on Wednesday, raising hopes the new measure will help end distasteful scenes of lawmakers scuffling with each other to push forward their demands over contentious issues.

The anti-clash bill was passed in a vote of 127 to 48, with 17 abstentions.  [Yonhap]

As I have always said, if these clowns are allowed to get away with this violence with only small fines to show for it, they will continue to do it.  We will have to wait and see if this bill makes any difference.

By the way if I was a Korean lawmaker this is who my aid would be.

Lee Hyun-chang rushed to sell all his shares in drug maker Wooridul Pharmaceutical after South Korea’s ruling conservative party scored an upset win in last week’s parliamentary elections. The college student was part of a stampede that sent the stock plunging 15 percent.

To anyone outside a subset of South Korea’s amateur stock trading scene, the link between the obscure pharmaceutical company and South Korea’s political elite would be mysterious. But it was simple for the 25-year-old Lee. He’s convinced Wooridul is allied with opposition politicians and would only prosper if South Koreans elect their candidate president in December elections.

Lee’s tenuous evidence: the opposition’s presidential hopeful had once been the chief of staff to a former South Korean president who underwent surgery at Wooridul Spine Hospital, a sister company to Wooridul Pharmaceutical. According to stock traders’ lore, that president, the late Roh Moo-hyun, was also once a lawyer for the hospital in the 1990s.

For Lee, selling Wooridul shares was a no-brainer. The opposition’s poor showing in the parliamentary elections suggested its candidate would also face defeat in the presidential poll. There would be no political favors for Wooridul.

Speculating on the outcome of elections is nothing new for investors but in South Korea it is a window into a society that can seem opaque to the West. The high importance placed on personal ties and kinship is reflected in the conspiracy-level convictions of Lee and others that rest on vague connections. And even as their theories seem far-fetched, they’re also a nod to the deep links between politicians and business.  [Seattle PI]

You can read the rest at the link.

South Korea’s ruling party headed toward an upset victory in Wednesday’s parliamentary elections in what would be a major boon for its leader and presidential hopeful Park Geun-hye just eight months before the presidential vote.

With about 84 percent of the votes counted, the ruling Saenuri Party won or was leading in 127 directly contested districts, according to an analysis by public broadcaster KBS based on data from the National Election Commission.

The main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) won or was ahead in 107 districts, and its coalition partner Unified Progressive Party won two districts and was leading in four other districts, according to KBS.

Six seats were expected to go to the minor opposition Liberty Forward Party or independents.

Combined with proportional seats, the ruling party was expected to win 148 of the total 300 seats up for grabs against the DUP’s 131 seats, KBS said. MBC TV gave a similar projection of the ruling party winning 150 seats and the DUP 130 seats.  [Yonhap]

Referring back to my prior article on this election quoting the Korea Economic Reader, it appears the South Korean electorate prefer having their country run by a “party of competent but cynical crooks than a party of incompetent but similarly cynical opportunists”.  This is also a big win for Park Geun-hye who took over election responsibilities in December when the conservatives’ public approval ratings were at their lowest.  Since then she was able to slowly cut into the large lead the Korean left held mostly due to their own incompetence.

I think Park is now a very strong contender for the Presidency in Korea after this result.  The Korean left will probably now be in full panic mode now to get Ahn Cheol-soo to run for the Presidency because he is probably the only one that can beat Park considering these election results.

 South Korea’s main opposition party struggled Monday to shift the focus of this week’s parliamentary elections back to a referendum on the unpopular President Lee Myung-bak and his ruling party as the races grew increasingly tight just two days before the voting.

The Democratic United Party had been forecast to win an easy victory in Wednesday’s polls amid widespread perceptions that the gap between rich and poor has widened under Lee’s pro-business policies and the benefits of growth in big businesses have not trickled down to the working class.

But the party has seen its once-comfortable lead over the ruling Saenuri Party closing as it fumbled the selection of its election candidates and was hit by revelations that one of its candidates made disgustingly sexist and derogatory remarks in the past.

Analysts and survey experts now say the elections are going to be a dead-heat contest.  [Yonhap News]

You can read the rest at the link but leave it to the Korean left to blow what should have been an easy election win for them by choosing incompetent candidates and a host of other scandals.  Even the illegal surveillance scandal from two years ago that they tried to bring back to life before the election backfired.

I think Tom Coyner for those that subscribe to the Korea Economic Reader sums up this election the best:

The fact is with this coming Wednesday’s national elections most South Koreans are faced with a forced choice between the party of competent but cynical crooks and the party of incompetent but similarly cynical opportunists.

There is a widespread desire for an electoral payback to be dished out against the incumbent conservatives.  And as the article hints below, if economic conditions were better, perhaps the vast majority of voters would attempt to teach the old rascals yet another lesson – probably in vain over the long run.

On the other hand, opposition party leader, Han Myung-sook has never won an election other than once as a beneficiary of a protest vote against a legislator who orchestrated the poorly conceived impeachment attempt of Roh Moo-hyun.  As prime minister, she proved incapable of describing the basics of her administration’s economic policies, at even a high level, during a Parisian press conference; and she narrowly lost her bid to rule Seoul thanks to the one public debate where it was painfully obvious she was not on top of the essential details of her own political platform.

And more recently, the transparently inconsistent back flopping has made her coalition of contrarians look increasingly loony.  This most recent episode of rightly calling for the prosecution of illegal surveillance brings back memories when this groups of pretend-to-be leftists went after evil Japanese collaborating families of the political establishment only to discover that their leaders’ families, too, were being caught up in that political witch hunt.

If the real electoral issues were not so serious, the current political environment would be laughable.  Appropriately, no one here is laughing.

The bottom line is that whoever wins the parliamentary elections should not feel like they have a mandate from the people, they were just the best of two bad options.

The Filipino community in South Korea is rallying behind the candidacy of Jasmine Lee, a Filipina married to a Korean who is running for Parliament under the ruling party, and Vice President Jejomar Binay said her strong showing “gives hope not only for Filipinos but also for all migrants and immigrants.”

“We are all very proud that a full-blooded Filipino is being given the opportunity to be a member of the Korean Parliament,” Binay told South Korean media. “It shows that Korea is prepared to extend the opportunity to become a public servant even to those who were not born here.”

Binay said if elected, Lee “will be an advocate not only of Filipino workers’ rights, but the rights of all migrants in South Korea as well.”

Lee is a popular TV host, and heads the Global Resource Center in Seoul, a non-government organization serving as a support group for foreign wives of Koreans.

She became a naturalized Korean in 1998, three years after she married Korean Lee Dongho and moved to South Korea.

The ruling Saenuri Party included her in the list of 46 candidates for the proportional representative seats in the April 11 elections in South Korea.  [The Daily Tribune]

Does anyone know if someone who wasn’t ethnically Korean has ever been elected to the Korean parliament before?

The presidential office said Monday that finding out the truth should be the primary focus regarding a snowballing illegal surveillance scandal, following a counterattack campaign over the weekend accusing the opposition of also illegally spying on civilians while it was in power.

“For now, uncovering the truth is the priority,” presidential spokesman Park Jeong-ha said.

Park said the weekend revelations by the highest office were defensive in nature and aimed at correcting faulty information in allegations against the government.

The scandal centers on allegations that an ethics team under the Prime Minister’s Office, which is in charge of ensuring government officials are not involved in corruption, carried out extensive spying not only on public officials, but also civilians critical of the government.

The scandal has reverberated through the political circles ahead of the April 11 general elections.

Sharply escalating the scandal were revelations last week from striking reporters at public broadcaster KBS that they had obtained 2,619 cases of government reports that the ethics team drew up in 2008-2010 after spying on top officials, politicians, journalists and civilians.

In a dramatic turnaround, however, the presidential office revealed over the weekend that 80 percent of the cases, or about 2,200 cases, were carried out during the previous administration of late President Roh Moo-hyun and when the current opposition leader Han Myeong-sook served as prime minister.

KBS unionists apologized for the error, but accused the government of trying to water down its wrongdoing. They claimed that most surveillance cases during the previous administration were done as part of routine activity, while the cases involving the current government were reckless in nature.  [Yonhap News],

That is one lame response by KBS that surveillance during the Roh administration was routine while surveillance during the Lee administration is reckless.  What is really funny about this scandal is that the KBS folks were waving documents in front of the TV cameras that were dated from being from the Roh years and this is how it was uncovered that the Roh administration conducted the majority of the surveillance.

Considering how it was uncovered that the former Kim Dae-jung administration was using the National Intelligence Service (NIS) to conduct illegal wiretaps of peoples land line and cell phones; using open sources and following people around is pretty tame in comparison.  Like I said before if anyone is additionally found to have done something illegal then they should be held accountable but since this issue was already investigated 2 years ago and is now being brought up again to sway this month’s parliamentary elections, I doubt any honest accounting of what really happened will be done.

The main opposition Democratic United Party intensified its attacks on President Lee Myung-bak Friday after the disclosure of documents alleging that his government carried out extensive spying on not only public officials but also civilians in its first years in office.

The ruling Saenuri Party also condemned the alleged surveillance and called for a thorough probe in an apparent attempt to distance itself from the scandal before next month’s general elections.

Striking journalists at public broadcaster KBS reported in a news program posted on the Internet on Thursday that they obtained 2,619 cases of government reports that an ethics team under the Prime Minister’s Office drew up in 2008-2010 after spying on top officials, politicians, journalists and civilians.

According to the report, the documents showed that the team, which is tasked with ensuring public officials are not involved in corruption, recklessly collected information on not only government officials, but also civilians considered critical of the government, such as labor union leaders and reporters at unfriendly media firms.

The revelations added to the already snowballing scandal surrounding the government’s illegal surveillance of a businessman critical of President Lee and the presidential office’s alleged attempt to cover it up. The opposition party has called the case a Korean version of the U.S. “Watergate scandal.”

The politically sensitive case is expected to be a hot-button issue in the run-up to the April 11 parliamentary elections.

“The reported truth about illegal surveillance is shocking,” said opposition party leader Han Myeong-sook. “The problem is that the results of the surveillance must have been reported to the VIP,” she said, urging President Lee to clarify whether he was involved and punish those responsible.

Rep. Park Young-sun, a ranking DUP lawmaker, claimed that the fresh revelations are only “the tip of the iceberg.”

“We have defined this case as a Korean version of the Watergate scandal,” she said, claiming that it is time for the country to talk about Lee’s resignation.  [Yonhap News]

You can read the rest at the link but apparently this illegal surveillance is old news from two years ago that the Korean left is now bringing up before elections this year.  This team was conducting the illegal surveillance because of the US beef mad cow protests that the Chinboistas and their media allies lied about in an attempt to make President Lee resign back in 2008.  I wonder if it was this ethics group that conducted the illegal surveillance were the ones that uncovered the coordinated lies between the Chinboistas and their media allies?

The investigation that uncovered the illegal surveillance by this ethics group said that the Presidential office had no knowledge of the illegal surveillance.

A former journalist has voluntarily relinquished his right to run in the April 11 National Assembly elections on a progressive party’s ticket for his alleged involvement in three sexual harassment cases.

Yoon Won-seok, the former president of progressive news website Voice of the People, said in a statement Thursday that his resignation was to prevent his “unsavory past” from carrying a negative impact on the minor opposition Unified Progressive Party (UPP) with the election only 20 days away.

The 42-year-old was the first candidate to quit the race due to a sex crime, dealing asevere blow to the left-wing party. The scandal has fueled public criticism of the party that is already reeling from a cover-up attempt of another sex crime.

Woo Wie-young, UPP spokesman, apologized for his party’s selection of Yoon as candidate. Female pharmacist Kim Mi-hee will inherit the candidacy, the spokesman said. Woo didn’t provide a detailed explanation about how Yoon was selected as UPP candidate.

He is alleged to have committed sexual harassment three times between 2006 and 2007.

In early 2007, Yoon, then head of the Voice of the People, kissed a female reporter of his company under the influence of alcohol, despite her resistance. The crime was made public in the same year, forcing his company to launch an investigation into the case. The investigation found that there were two other female reporters sexually harassed by him in 2006.

Yoon admitted culpability in to the 2007 case, but denied his involvement in the other two. “I’m very ashamed of what I did,” he said.“I will live with a great sense of regret.”

On top of this, the minor opposition party has been denounced for giving a slot to a progressive activist who is suspected of having attempted to cover up a sex crime.

Chung Jin-who, former chairman of a group of progressive-minded teachers, the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union (KTEWU), came fourth on the list of the UPP’s proportional representation candidates.

Whether or not he will win a parliamentary seat under the system will be determined by the number of ballots cast in favor of the party.

In December 2008, a KTEWU member, placed on the police’s wanted list, attempted to rape a woman. Chung tried to cover up the crime in order to ward off public criticism of his organization.   [Korea Times via Marmot's Hole]

I am actually less concerned by their sex crime pasts than I am by who these people really are.  ROK Heads may remember that the UPP are the leftists that said that if they take power after elections this year they will withdraw from the US-ROK Free Trade Agreement and demand US troop withdrawals from South Korea.  Their allied political party the Democratic United Party (DUP) eventually had to backtrack from the UPP’s stand in regards to these issues in order to win back votes.  To further show the far left backgrounds of these two candidates involved with these sex crimes, the Voice of People is a well known anti-US site that I have checked out to see what narrative the leftists are pushing ever since the 2002 Armored Vehicle Accident.  They were also one of the largest NGO’s pushing the US beef Mad Cow Riots back in 2008.

The KTEWU on the other hand is a well known anti-US and pro-North Korean organization.   This group routinely indoctrinates students with pro-communist propaganda, spreads anti-government lies, and anti-Americanism in the classrooms of Korean schools.  To further emphasize where the true loyalties of this organization lies, the political party they were caught giving money to, the DLP was linked to a North Korean spy scandal.  So considering the past activities of this teachers’ union, it is easy to understand why the Lee Myung-bak government has taken measures to rid the classrooms of the teachers.

So just keep in mind that these are the type of people running for political office in South Korea.