ed Cyber election sabotage

Ruling party is in danger of moral bankruptcy

Shock is too weak a word to describe public sentiment about the alleged election obstruction involving the governing Grand National Party (GNP) recently.

If found to be true, the widespread cyber attack on the election watchdog’s website to keep young voters from casting ballots during the Seoul mayoral election Oct. 26 will put the nation’s political clock at least half a century back. In 1960, a widespread election rigging led to the downfall of the first republic, called the “banana republic” by global villagers.

This is in part why this page would rather like to believe the GNP leadership’s insistence that a low-echelon aide of Rep. Choi Ku-shik ``single-handedly” committed the appalling act of destroying the nation’s hard-won democracy.

Yet we, like most voters, cannot believe that a 27-year-old chauffeur who earns less than $2,000 a month dared to orchestrate the massive hacking that experts say requires at least several hundreds of millions of won in arranging and paying for three accomplices. Officers quote the suspects as saying they committed the grave crime, punishable by up to 10 years in jail, ``from loyalty.” Kindergarteners would laugh.

The main culprit denies all charges against him despite the co-workers’ confession. He might be either trying to buy time for his masterminds or demonstrating his complaints about being made the only scapegoat. Rep. Choi also flatly denies any involvement, saying it’s as if he were hit by a bolt out of the blue.” Yet Choi, who formerly was a reporter at the nation’s largest conservative paper will need to explain why the preparation for the cyber attack coincided with his becoming the ruling party’s spin doctor.

Even more lamentable were the responses of GNP leaders. Chairman Hong Jun-pyo stopped short of making a formal apology, saying it would cause ``unnecessary misunderstanding.” He even described the serious incident as just one of many happenings in a large organization. Floor leader Hwang Woo-yea went one step further, stressing the aide must have acted alone and actually defined ― or restricted ― the scope of investigations into the case. Another GNP lawmaker even hinted that the chauffeur might have been from the opposition camp.

The ruling party leadership’s ethical insensitivity following its sheer irresponsibility shows why many voters and political analysts say there is no future for the GNP. Belatedly aware of this incident’s potential impact, they called on the police to get to the bottom of it in what voters view as a political gesture for damage control. Even if the aide committed it on his own by any possibility, there still remains moral responsibility on the part of GNP leaders.

The more the ruling party tries to get out of this scandal, the deeper it will get mired in it. It must cooperate for the opposition calls for a parliamentary probe or an independent counsel. It must recall Admiral Yi Soon-shin’s famous saying, ``Those who struggle to live will die, and those who are willing to die will live.”