In South Korea’s fractious election campaign, even mild-mannered leader Moon Jae-in has weighed in

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.

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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”.

He went on to say that there should be further investigations into a massive real estate development scandal that occurred on his opponent Lee’s watch when he was serving as the Seongnam City mayor from 2014 to 2018. Lee denies he committed any criminal offences.

According to Moon’s top spokesman Park Soo-hyun, the president questioned if Yoon meant that he himself had turned “a blind eye to irregularities of this government” when he was the prosecutor-general and as the chief of the Seoul Central District prosecutors office.

“Or does he mean that he is going to make up corruption cases that do not exist? He must give an answer”, Moon said.

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Working with a special prosecutor, Yoon, in 2016 and 2017 as a senior prosecutor, spearheaded probes into Moon’s predecessors – former conservative presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak. Both of whom eventually fell into disgrace, convicted of corruption and abuse of power.

These investigations were widely hailed as a campaign aimed to eradicate “deep-rooted evils” of the past.

Following widespread pro-democracy protests, Moon won the 2017 presidential election and appointed Yoon as head of the key Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office. Two years later, he promoted Yoon as the powerful prosecutor general.

But Yoon fell out of favour with the Moon government when he ordered an investigation into Cho Kuk, one of Moon’s closest aides who was emerging as his successor, and who was also Yoon’s potential political rival. The investigation came after Moon turned down Yoon’s request for Moon not to appoint Cho as the justice minister.

Cho’s wife and daughter have been pilloried by local news media, who received information from prosecutors probing the family’s attempts to lie on the daughter’s resume to help her advance to a medical college.

These probes by state prosecutors were conducted on an exorbitantly wide scale for irregularities committed by individuals, sparking allegations that they were Yoon’s personal vendetta against Cho.

Cho resigned soon after his appointment as justice minister, with the wife convicted and jailed for forging documents, in a blow to the administration. Yoon consequently emerged as a darling of the conservative bloc. He quit as prosecutor general in March last year, joined the main opposition PPP and won its presidential nomination in November.

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In an interview with seven local and international news agencies, Moon lamented that South Korea’s harsh political culture remains unchanged despite the tragedy of former Democrat president Roh Moo-hyun who committed suicide in 2009 by jumping off a mountain behind his home.

The death of Roh, whom Moon considered a mentor and friend, came as he was undergoing what was widely seen as a politically motivated investigation under then conservative president Lee Myung-bak.

Yoon’s rival and Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung also weighed in on the controversy. “I have never seen a presidential candidate vowing to carry out a political vendetta [against their predecessor] in my memory,” he said. “We should pursue social integration to move forward. Revenge, hatred and conflict are only toxic to society.”

Yoon however, did not back down, saying he was making a “commonplace observation”.

“When a new administration comes to power, issues with the previous administration are naturally brought to light and investigations take place according to the normal workings of the judicial system. As long as one doesn’t think any issues will come up, he doesn’t need to get worked up over this,” he said.

Political-science professor Yoon Sung-Suk of Chonnam University agreed that South Korean politics had a problematic “cycle of political revenge”. He added: “It’s repeated when a new government comes to power every five years. Some voters who are fed up with this cycle may become swing voters and move away from Yoon,” he told the SCMP.