Park's silence can led to denials of election outcome
Was last year's presidential election a fraudulent ballot tainted by systematic smear campaigns conducted by both civilian and military intelligence agents? The answer is no or most Koreans think it should be no ― for now.
That may change soon, depending on how President Park Geun-hye and the ruling Saenuri Party deal with the rapidly spreading political protests and increasingly widespread jitters about the election scandal. And given what the president and her party have done ― and have not done ― about it so far, the social turmoil will likely become far worse before it gets any better.
The main opposition Democratic Party is right to describe the 2012 election as "unfair," based on one disclosure after another about state spies and military intelligence agents engaged in writing and disseminating opinions in favor of then candidate Park and criticizing her DP rival at the time, Moon Jae-in.
And the governing party is wrong to paint the opposition's justifiable raising of questions about fairness issue as a refusal to accept the poll results as legitimate.
What the ruling camp should have done was guarantee free and fair investigations into the National Intelligence Service and the military's Cyber Command. Instead, the Saenuri Party and the presidential office have tried to downplay it, and aided and abetted NIS maneuvers to divert popular attention away from the allegations of attempting to influence the election by, for instance, by alleging in that former President's Roh Moo-hyun was soft on national security issues and the poor preservation of summit records.
Some conservative media outlets also contribute to the ongoing chaos, making light of the actual influence the alleged cyber smear campaigns might have had on the outcome of the election and accusing the DP of exaggerating the scandal for political purposes, to weaken the Park administration from its start.
Regardless of the DP's political intentions, this is a lamentable manifestation ― or proof ― of some conservatives' lack of democratic consciousness and their willfulness to not abide by the law. The election interference by state agencies and government employees is a serious breach of the Constitution that forbids such activities because it undermines the foundation of this fledgling democracy. What's important is not the number of votes affected by such campaigns but the fact that state organs defied their foremost duty to remain politically neutral and intervened in the democratic process, together or separately.
No doubt this is a far graver issue than the former administration's mishandling of the U.S. beef import issue. Still all President Park has done about it is to remain silent, after initially denying both her involvement and receiving any real help from the previous government. Cheong Wa Dae and the ruling party must have interpreted Park's silence as an order to ignore demands from the opposition and an increasing number of the public to uncover the truth and punish those responsible.
Now, people will interpret any further silence from the president as a subtle way of shielding plotters and liars. As we saw during the Watergate and many other similar political scandals since, what's more dangerous than wrongdoing is any attempt to hide and lie about it.
Only the president can resolve this increasingly knotty crisis, and the only way to save her presidency is to let go a few of her right-hand men and give up her far-right support base. There is little time even for this.
Was last year's presidential election a fraudulent ballot tainted by systematic smear campaigns conducted by both civilian and military intelligence agents? The answer is no or most Koreans think it should be no ― for now.
That may change soon, depending on how President Park Geun-hye and the ruling Saenuri Party deal with the rapidly spreading political protests and increasingly widespread jitters about the election scandal. And given what the president and her party have done ― and have not done ― about it so far, the social turmoil will likely become far worse before it gets any better.
The main opposition Democratic Party is right to describe the 2012 election as "unfair," based on one disclosure after another about state spies and military intelligence agents engaged in writing and disseminating opinions in favor of then candidate Park and criticizing her DP rival at the time, Moon Jae-in.
And the governing party is wrong to paint the opposition's justifiable raising of questions about fairness issue as a refusal to accept the poll results as legitimate.
What the ruling camp should have done was guarantee free and fair investigations into the National Intelligence Service and the military's Cyber Command. Instead, the Saenuri Party and the presidential office have tried to downplay it, and aided and abetted NIS maneuvers to divert popular attention away from the allegations of attempting to influence the election by, for instance, by alleging in that former President's Roh Moo-hyun was soft on national security issues and the poor preservation of summit records.
Some conservative media outlets also contribute to the ongoing chaos, making light of the actual influence the alleged cyber smear campaigns might have had on the outcome of the election and accusing the DP of exaggerating the scandal for political purposes, to weaken the Park administration from its start.
Regardless of the DP's political intentions, this is a lamentable manifestation ― or proof ― of some conservatives' lack of democratic consciousness and their willfulness to not abide by the law. The election interference by state agencies and government employees is a serious breach of the Constitution that forbids such activities because it undermines the foundation of this fledgling democracy. What's important is not the number of votes affected by such campaigns but the fact that state organs defied their foremost duty to remain politically neutral and intervened in the democratic process, together or separately.
No doubt this is a far graver issue than the former administration's mishandling of the U.S. beef import issue. Still all President Park has done about it is to remain silent, after initially denying both her involvement and receiving any real help from the previous government. Cheong Wa Dae and the ruling party must have interpreted Park's silence as an order to ignore demands from the opposition and an increasing number of the public to uncover the truth and punish those responsible.
Now, people will interpret any further silence from the president as a subtle way of shielding plotters and liars. As we saw during the Watergate and many other similar political scandals since, what's more dangerous than wrongdoing is any attempt to hide and lie about it.
Only the president can resolve this increasingly knotty crisis, and the only way to save her presidency is to let go a few of her right-hand men and give up her far-right support base. There is little time even for this.
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