ed Ex-presidents' behaviors

Former President Lee Myung-bak is a tennis aficionado ― a controversial one, too.

Lee, who left Cheong Wa Dae about two months ago, is now on the tongues of local tennis enthusiasts because of nearly monopolizing the indoor court in the Seoul Olympic Park every Saturday morning. To secure a slot of the newly-built courts, ordinary citizens have to fiercely compete at its on-line booking site: all Lee needed was a phone call to the public facilities’ operator through his aides.

The former leader also reportedly paid only half of the regular fees “through the good offices of the operator,” a unit of the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation whose head was appointed by Lee when he was in office. Lee’s aides said they didn’t ask for any particular favors, ranging from the reservation to payment. Probably they may be right, and the ex-leader himself might have done nothing wrong ― in principle.

But it would have been far better for Lee to wait for his turn and play among other citizens rather than engaging in what the media call the “imperial tennis” ― blocking popular access and having former national team players as his partners-cum-ball boys. Like many of the promises Lee made in office, he didn’t keep the final one: to return to an ordinary president.

This is not even the first gossip caused by Lee’s love of the sport. In 2006, as the Seoul mayor, Lee was also involved in another “emperor-like tennis” scandal, and the person who paid 20 million won in fees on Lee’s behalf was later prosecuted for stock manipulation.

We know ex-Presidents cannot return to ordinary lives if they want to, particularly in public areas such as career pursuit. In private, however, they can act like one of their neighbors, or at least try to appear so.

Another ex-president, Chun Doo-hwan has refused to pay 338 million won ($300,000) in various taxes over the past four years, let alone the 167.3 billion won in penalties for creating slush funds, saying he has no money while his children’s total assets reportedly amount to 200 billion won. Yet he erodes an additional 700 million won a year in state coffer for his security costs.

Koreans have had no luck of having a successful president. It would probably be too much then if they expect to have respectable, or at least amicable, ex-presidents.