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N. Korea issue cannot cover domestic scandals

Five days after Kim Jong-il’s death, President Lee Myung-bak left the Cheong Wa Dae bunker to resume work Thursday. Good for him! After all, there is little he or his administration can do to break the inter-Korean deadlock, with neither a working intelligence system nor a bold policy turnaround.

Yet there are lots of things Lee and the Blue House can, and should, do domestically. Most urgent is how to dissolve deepening popular suspicions on various scandals and irregularities involving the chief executive, his relatives and aides. The governing camp may hope the big news from Pyongyang would cover them up if the dead North Korean leader serves as an unintended political savior. Nothing could be more mistaken, though.

Some scandals, if Lee fails to settle them, will dog him throughout his last year in office and maybe even after that, keeping the President from focusing on finishing his job. Here are three of the most serious issues.

Cyber election sabotage:

It is increasingly likely some Cheong Wa Dae officials were involved in the unprecedented attack on the election watchdog’s website by some secretaries of governing party lawmakers, including none other than the National Assembly speaker.

Otherwise, it is hard to understand why Lee’s chief political aide phoned the police chief to ask how the investigation was proceeding, and why investigators have reported developments to Cheong Wa Dae even ahead of their own boss at a time when some Blue House aides are suspected of playing a role in the incident.

Cheong Wa Dae and the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) must bare all there is with respect to the shocking case, which threatens to shake the nation’s foundation. A group of Seoul National University students is reportedly preparing a political manifesto before launching a signature drive. Handled poorly, the scandal will work as a torpedo to sink the entire governing camp in an election year.

Stock fraud:

Ironically, the Supreme Court’s recent guilty ruling on former opposition lawmaker and Lee’s ``sniper,” Chung Bong-ju, will likely rekindle the popular debate on stock price manipulation scandal that has haunted the President since his candidate days.

The ruling, which many Internet users think mirrors the Establishment’s uneasiness with what it sees as undue freedom of speech in cyberspace, glaringly lacks equity with other former attackers of Lee, including the GNP’s current standard-bearer, Rep. Park Geun-hye. If the court punishes someone for failing to provide proof for their assertions while judges themselves have failed to prove the defendant wrong in the first place, the nation’s legal system is in serious self-contradiction.

There are too many questions and incomplete answers concerning this issue and at stake is the integrity of Korea’s law enforcement system. This means someone could reopen this case even after Lee’s departure from office unless the incumbent prosecutors and judges try to wrap it up half-resolved.

Retirement home:

Transparency International Korea has selected Lee’s abortive attempt to build a retirement home in a hot southern Seoul district as the biggest corruption scandal of 2011. This means the law enforcement authorities ― and conservative major media outlets ― dealt with this scandal in the most opaque manner.

People still don’t believe Lee’s fired chief bodyguard bought the land in the name of the first son without even reporting to his boss.

The half-baked probes and hurried wrap-up show this could be high on the list of incidents subject for possible parliamentary hearings when political power changes hands.

Unless and until the governing camp offers answers for these scandals to the satisfaction of at least the majority of Koreans, Lee will hardly be able to do his job properly, be it inter-Korean relationships or economic recovery.

Barring a security emergency that the Koreas must avoid at all costs, no external issues can sweep this domestic trash under the rug.