In South Korea’s fractious election campaign, even mild-mannered leader Moon Jae-in has weighed in
- Antipathy towards China, soaring home prices, gender equality and soaring house prices are defining issues of the election
- But the debate has got personal – and ugly – among the two leading candidates and even the current president has now spoken out against the ‘cycle of political revenge’
In a surprise move on Thursday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, broke his silence on the looming race to replace him.
The campaign for the March 9 presidential polls has been rife with mudslinging and personal attacks fuelled by the camps of the two leading contenders. But after the conservative candidate from the opposition People Power Party Yoon Suk-yeol said he would launch a probe into the Moon government’s “deep-rooted corruption” if elected, Moon spoke up.
Furious over what he apparently took as a personal insult from the former prosecutor general – who Moon himself had hand-picked for the role when in 2019 – the mild-mannered leader expressed “strong indignation” and demanded an apology.
The public clash between the outgoing president and a contender for presidency has sparked a political maelstrom in the final weeks of the campaign and dominated discussions among members of the public who feel jaded about both candidates.
Yoon is locked in a tight race with Lee Jae-myung of Moon’s liberal Democratic Party but their support ratings are hovering at about 35 per cent, suggesting that a majority of voters polled disapprove of them. Political pundits say Moon’s response may actually help lift support for Yoon, even as they believe the president and his acolytes will now support Lee all the more.
Shin Yul, a political-science professor at Myongji University, said Yoon’s remarks were apparently aimed at rallying support from conservatives who want to deliver a judgment against Democrats at ballot boxes. “Yoon’s [comments are] intended to bring to limelight his campaign slogan calling for the change of hand in government”, he said.
In an interview with the conservative JoongAng Ilbo daily on Wednesday, Yoon said that a lawful investigation by a new administration into the previous one could not be seen as illegal or a form of political retaliation. When the interviewer asked if he would order a probe into “deep-rooted corruption” of the Moon administration, Yoon replied: “Of course, we would have to do so. We would have to. It must be carried out”.