With the presidential campaign in full swing, mud slinging against each others candidates is growing day by day, and on Tuesday the Grand National Party and Millennium Democratic Party launched vitriolic attacks against their respective aspirants and aides. Kim Mun-soo of the GNP charged that the MDP's Roh Moo-hyun acquired W3 billion in real estate under his brother's name and failed to report this to the National Assembly Ethics Committee, as he acted like the poor people's candidate. Kim also alleged that a local government re-designated Roh's land from farming to residential and overlooked his wife's real estate speculation. The MDP countered that an American PR firm planned the National Intelligence Service illegal surveillance scandal raised by the GNP, and alleged Lee Hoi-chang's brother was corrupt.

This kind of bad mouthing and battle of disclosure may provide people with material to judge the past activity and character of the presidential candidates. However, those doing the disclosing must back their allegations with hard evidence and take full responsibility for their actions; there has to be a clear division between allegations with factual backing and those without it. If the MDP's charge of the involvement of a US PR company is true it is an explosive issue, and so the party must provide unshakeable evidence.

The campaign has just started, and so it is disgraceful that these kinds of disclosure are growing and growing with two weeks to go. If these strategies are pursued to the end, it will just confirm the low level of Korea's politics and so politicians are advised to think twice before opening their mouths.

December 5, 2002