By Kim Hyo-jin
The 20-day National Assembly audit into government offices is set to begin Thursday.
This is the first Assembly inspection into both former and incumbent administrations at the same time, because of ex-President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment in March this year over a corruption scandal and her successor Moon Jae-in’s inauguration afterward.
While opposition parties usually attack government policies, this time the ruling party is expected to take aim at the previous conservative Lee Myung-bak and Park governments and the opposition block, at the current liberal Moon administration and even the previous Roh Moo-hyun administration.
The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) is gearing up to attack the alleged misdeeds of the Lee and Park administrations in parallel with Moon’s drive to clean up longstanding evils of society.
It has sought to uncover Lee’s alleged abuses of power _ surveillance on civilians, blacklisting liberal-minded artists and political meddling in the 2012 general and presidential elections _ and is set to throw Lee into the spotlight during the audit sessions.
Evidence has been found to back allegations the Lee administration’s defense ministry, then led by Minister Kim Kwan-jin, assigned its Cyber Warfare Command to post online comments disparaging opposition candidates.
Kim is expected to be dogged by the ruling party that seeks to find evidence of former President Lee’s culpability.
The party said it has obtained multiple governmental documents verifying the alleged irregularities, and they will be disclosed at the audit.
Park’s corruption scandal will also be subject to the inspection, including alleged government favors for her longtime confidant Choi Soon-sil and her associates.
Conservative opposition parties are to grill the Moon government over its North Korea policy, personnel screening system and budget plans for welfare policies.
They plan to corner Moon’s two-track North Korea policy of seeking dialogue and sanctions, stressing deepening security concerns over the North’s nuclear and missile provocations.
They will also attack the Moon government for opposing redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons and trying to advance a timeline for Seoul to take back wartime operational control.
The main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) said it would shed light on bribery allegations surrounding former liberal President Roh Moo-hyun as part of a strategy to defend the conservative Lee and Park governments.
LKP floor spokesman Jeong Yong-ki said, “It’s clearly a political retaliation that the ruling bloc pushes for the so-called eradication of deep-rooted social evils only of the conservative governments. We will also look into evil practices in the Kim Dae-jung and Roh governments.”
It has called for the prosecution to reopen the investigation into the bribery scandal, but said it would reconsider the demand according to how the ruling bloc’s offensive to the conservative governments proceeds.
Rival parties are also likely to clash over the conservative governments’ attempts to control public broadcasters MBC and KBS. It was alleged that the broadcasters’ management, appointed by the presidential administrations, unfairly intervened in programming and gave disadvantages to the personnel who were critical of the presidents.
“It is inevitable to replace the current managements. What they have done to their employees is more of a violation of human rights,” a DPK lawmaker said.
The LKP claims it was rather the Moon government that intends to control the media: it said an internal DPK document disclosed in September showed the party should support civic group-led campaigns for the resignations of upper management at MBC and KBS.