By Kim Young-jin
North Korea’s state media Thursday criticized the South Korean prosecution’s raid of the minor opposition Unified Progressive Party (UPP), which is under fire for Pyongyang-friendly leanings.
The UPP is reeling after prosecutors seized three computer servers on Tuesday following a vote-rigging scandal. Already facing a crisis, the North’s implied support may pose a further challenge amid concerns over the party’s extreme left flank.
The official Korean Central News Agency quoted a party official as calling the raid "politically-motivated suppression and a revelation of the sinister intention to shake the foundation of the progressive party.” The coverage is seen as a ploy to divert attention to the Lee Myung-bak administration, with which Pyongyang holds icy ties.
UPP officials have claimed the raid was carried out to serve the best interests of the Lee administration with the presidential election seven months away.
Analysts say the North’s spate of insults aimed at the administration is seeking to swing voter sentiment here in favor of liberals who favor engagement in their Pyongyang policy.
But the coverage may compound the UPP’s problems as the party is split over how to handle the case of two lawmakers-elect accused of pro-Pyongyang activities.
Lee Seok-gi and Kim Jae-yeon, elected in April under the proportional representative system, belong to the party's largest faction dominated by former student activists who embrace the North’s guiding “juche” or self-reliance ideology.
The two lawmakers-elect, as well as 12 other candidates, have been at the center of a dispute between the two largest factions over the vote-rigging scandal in which they were allegedly involved. Lee and Kim have so far resisted ultimatums to step down.
Meanwhile, UPP lawmaker-elect Lee Sang-kyu made an attempt to clarify his North Korea stance, saying in a radio interview that the North’s back-to-back hereditary power transition, while “not a sin” was problematic. He added he was against Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
Lee has come under fire for refusing to address the North’s deplorable human rights record during a television appearance.
The nuclear-equipped regime, which walked out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003, gave power to new leader Kim Jong-un following the death of his father Kim Jong-il last year.
The Koreas are engaged in a vitriolic tit-for-tat since the North’s failed April 13 rocket launch that was deemed an illegal ballistic missile test.
Pyongyang is upset over what it called defamatory remarks during its celebrations last month for country founder Kim Il-sung, for which it carried out the expensive launch. The Lee administration has continuously called for the new North Korean regime to end its provocations and reform its Stalinist system.
Lee, unlike his liberal predecessors, tied trade and aid to the North to denuclearization steps, drawing the ire of the impoverished regime.