LKP challenges popular TV show over 'miscasting'

A scene from an episode of MBC's entertainment program "Infinite Challenge" to be aired on April 1, where citizens and lawmakers discuss how to develop the country after the presidential election. / Yonhap

By Kim Rahn

The conservative Liberty Korea Party (LKP) has lodged a legal fight with one of the nation’s most popular entertainment shows over its casting of an estranged party member.

Last Saturday, the MBC TV program “Infinite Challenge” aired a preview for its April 1 episode in which citizens and five lawmakers representing each of the five political parties discuss how to develop the country after the May 9 presidential election.

The former ruling party criticized the program for casting Rep. Kim Hyun-ah as the “representative” of the LPK.

The lawmaker has been critical of her own party over the presidential corruption scandal. She has participated in political events of the Bareun Party, which was formed by dissenters of the Saenuri Party, the precursor to the LKP. In January, the LKP took heavy disciplinary action against Kim, banning her from participating in the party’s activities for three years.

“Casting her as the LKP representative is nonsense, even considering it is an entertainment program,” spokesman Jeong Jun-kil said in a statement, Wednesday. “It is virtually the same as casting two Bareun Party members and no LKP member, so it is unfair.”

The party then filed an injunction with a local court, asking it to prevent MBC from broadcasting the episode.

Producers of “Infinite Challenge” said they cast the lawmakers according to their expertise rather than their political careers, to meet several themes such as employment, housing and childcare. Kim, a former researcher at the Construction and Economy Research Institute of Korea, was invited for her expertise on housing issues, they said.

“If they (LKP members) watch the show this Saturday, they will learn they were over-concerned,” a producer said.

Many citizens denounced the LKP for responding “too seriously” to an entertainment program.

“If it was a program about current affairs, it is understandable for the party to raise questions. But Infinite Challenge is entertainment. It is excessive intervention in broadcasting to demand the producers not air the episode only because a disciplined party member appears,” an internet user said.

Some pointed out that even before the Kim issue, the LKP had not liked the program which often satirized the scandal and former President Park Geun-hye, an LKP member.

“The casting is only an excuse for the party to find fault with the program,” another user said.