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| Democratic Party of Korea presidential candidate, Lee Jae-myung, left, and his wife, Kim Hye-kyung, meet with local residents of Andong, North Gyeongsang Province, during Korea's Lunar New Year holiday on Feb. 1. Newsis |
DPK presidential candidate apologizes as wife's past actions deal blow to his campaign
By Ko Dong-hwan
Kim Keon-hee, the wife of Yoon Suk-yeol, the presidential candidate of the main opposition People Power Party, caused a controversy following the release of recordings of her private phone conversations with a YouTuber, along with allegations that she falsified the credentials on her resume to get a university teaching position. Now, the attention has shifted to the wife of the ruling party's candidate for alleged abuse of power.
Kim Hye-kyung, the wife of ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) presidential candidate, Lee Jae-myung, issued an apology on Wednesday through the party over allegations that she had ordered public officials at the Gyeonggi Provincial Government Office to run personal errands for her using the office's money in 2021. On Wednesday, a fresh allegation was made that she used her husband's corporate card to purchase beef for her family.
The allegations first surfaced last month when TV broadcaster SBS reported that a male official from the secretarial department at the office of the provincial government had been repeatedly ordered by his superior in the general affairs department ― identified only by her last name of Bae ― to run Kim's personal errands. According to SBS, the official purchased meat from a butcher, sushi and other foods or cooking ingredients and delivered them to Kim's home in Bundang District, Seongnam City, on multiple occasions. For each errand, he first paid using her own credit card and later canceled the transaction, repaying with the government office's credit card.
This secretarial department official was also ordered by Bae in June to take care of Lee's eldest son, who was discharged from a hospital, and to pay the medical bill with the office's credit card. In November, he was also ordered to take one of Lee's suits to a dry cleaner. On another occasion, Bae ordered the official to purchase prescription drugs for Kim.
The official ran the errands while Lee was governor of Gyeonggi Province ― a title he held from 2018 to last October, when he quit to run in the presidential election.
"Everything was my fault, and I humbly apologize to all Korean citizens for having aroused concern," Kim said in her apology. She claimed that she and Bae were friends and that she had received Bae's help from time to time, but that it wasn't on a consistent basis. She regretted not having been more careful to separate the personal and public sides of her life.
Kim said she sympathized with the pain of the secretarial department official who ran errands on her behalf, adding that she was not supposed to let him do that for her.
Earlier on Feb. 2, Bae also made an apology to both the public and provincial government officials regarding her involvement in the abuse of government funds. She said that ordering the secretarial department official to run personal errands for Kim was her own decision, not Kim's or anyone else's.
Bae had previously denied ordering any personal errands for Kim when the allegations first surfaced last month.
"I have known Kim and candidate Lee for a long time and I guess I considered it my excuse to inadvertently order the secretarial department official around to make myself look good to the couple," Bae said, admitting that her actions were unethical.
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| Kim Keon-hee, the wife of the People Power Party's presidential candidate, Yoon Suk-yeol, apologizes to the public at the party's office in Yeouido, Seoul, Dec. 26, 2021, over having falsified her credentials on her resume ― a scandal that irked the public. Newsis |
Bae also claimed that she herself needed the hormone drug ― which had been prescribed for Kim ― because of her health condition, so she had ordered the official in question to pick it up.
"I demanded unjust things of the secretarial department official although I had no such authority or orders from superiors to do so," Bae said. She added that she will immediately stop all her volunteering and other roles for Lee's election campaign.
These apologies, however, didn't prevent members of competing parties from continuing to throw accusations at Kim. Other presidential candidates and their election camps demanded further investigation into Kim's alleged abuses of power, as well as an official apology from Lee to the public.
The People Power Party (PPP) responded to the apologies by saying that the allegations of Kim's abuse of power over public servants and the personal use of the provincial government office's credit card are acts that are "obviously illegal."
"There's no way candidate Lee didn't know about this abuse of power," a deputy spokesperson from the PPP election camp said. "I wonder how much Lee and Kim have misappropriated funds from the provincial coffer until now."
Another deputy spokesperson of the camp said that Bae's confession is, "(Lee's) attempt to 'save a lizard's life by cutting off his tail' ― a classic method to cover up a case of the abuse of power through the pretention of fidelity," urging Kim and Lee to be investigated as much as necessary.
The election camp of the minor progressive Justice Party also condemned the DPK for "admitting to the allegations after having denied them for days." A party spokesperson for presidential candidate Sim Sang-jung pointed out that Lee was the one who said he would "never allow the privatization of one's authority," and urged Lee provide an explanation to the public concerning Kim's abuse of her authority over provincial government officials.
Lee issued an apology, Thursday, regarding the abuse of power allegations made against his wife. He said that he regrets not having paid due attention and prevented the commotion while serving as governor. He added that he will request an audit agency to investigate "stringently" whether there is any evidence of such abuse of power, including related to the use of the province's official credit card, and will receive due punishment if any is found.
DPK Chairman Song Young-gil, on the other hand, compared Lee's wife to Kim Keon-hee.
"Running personal errands is a matter to be settled between Kim Hye-kyung and the provincial officials in question," said Song on TV network JTBC. "But what's far worse is Kim Keon-hee's alleged abuse of power over the director of the district prosecutors' office, whom she treated as her own secretary while her husband was the country's prosecutor general."
