hankyoreh

By Digital News Team

Chun Yu-ok, once a leading member of the Grand National Party's Park Geun-hye wing who served as party spokeswoman during Park’s stint as chairwoman, has some harsh words for the current GNP emergency countermeasures committee chairwoman. The written attack has observers questioning Chun’s political motives.

Chun writes, "Park Geun-hye always gives short answers. She looks for deep content and symbolic metaphors. But that's as far as it has gone. In a sense, it doesn't seem too different from the kind of 'baby talk' you hear from infants who are just learning to speak."

Lawmaker Chung Mong-joon, a close acquaintance of Chun's, jokingly expressed concern about her comments at a release party for her book Tuesday, saying, "Even I'm a bit worried about whether it's okay to write so bluntly."

In the self-titled book, which was released Wednesday, Chun said Park "lacked human content" and "really lacked the ability to analyze what she read in the newspaper and in depth of interpretation."

Regarding Park's rise to power, Chun wrote, "To [Park], power was something natural, and she came to understand it as something like perfectly tailored clothes."

"To Park Geun-hye, the Grand National Party was her own party," Chun said. "The Republic of Korea was her country, made by her father. Its citizens were her citizens, whom her father looked on with pity. Obviously, the Cheong Wa Dae (South Korea’s presidential office or Blue House) was her house. And the presidency was a company---'My family's job.'"

Once so close an associate of Park's that she was referred to as her "voice," Chun described the factors behind her decision to not support Park during the 2007 presidential race and shift her support to Lee Myung-bak.

"As a candidate, Park Geun-hye lacked good reflexes, and she had a more fundamental problem than being the 'hundred-word princess,'" Chun wrote. "Former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook, who was persecuted during the Park Chung-hee presidency, was Park Geun-hye's 'rival horse.' Since it was ultimately a perpetrator vs. victim scenario, I thought it was a very serious situation. I came to the conclusion that it wasn't going to work at all with the 'Park Geun-hye card.' If Park Geun-hye became the candidate, I expected the other side's candidate to be Han Myeong-sook. In my eyes, that was a losing hand."

But Chun’s book shows another change of color with disparaging remarks about Lee, whom she once supported.

"Lee Myung-bak is said to have lamented that he didn't have his own Lee Kwang-jae or Ahn Hee-jung," Chun wrote. "Former President Roh Moo-hyun, Lee, and Ahn were passionate comrades to each other. But does President Lee have any kind of comrade like that now?"

Observers said the shots fired at Park and Lee by Chun bear some connection with the current situation in the GNP. Analysts said that she is attempting to stay alive as an independent, since with Park now at the party's reins, she not only faces bleak nomination prospects for the April general election, but also cannot rely on President Lee.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]