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President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol greets residents in the city of Donghae, Gangwon Province, on Tuesday. Donghae is one of the areas that was affected by the wildfires that blazed along the country’s eastern coast earlier this month. (pool photo)

President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol officially disclosed his intention to ask President Moon Jae-in in an upcoming meeting to pardon former President Lee Myung-bak. Critics are calling the move an attempt at a “self-pardon” — one through which Yoon, by demanding a presidential pardon of a former president currently in prison for personal corruption charges, is defending the interests of the conservative camp he is a part of by trying to pressure Moon into abusing his authority to grant clemency as president.

Yoon’s spokesperson Kim Eun-hye stated in a briefing Tuesday that Yoon will be meeting Moon in a luncheon at the Blue House on Wednesday, explaining that “Yoon has long maintained the wish to request a presidential pardon for former President Lee [and] subsequently hopes that the occasion of the upcoming meeting will lead to opportunities for national unity and reconciliation.”

By forewarning that Yoon plans to request a presidential pardon for Lee during a private, one-on-one meeting with Moon, the statement has put pressure on Moon to accept the request for the sake of national unity. Lawmaker Kweon Seong-dong, a close aide of Yoon, added to the pressure, claiming that “the Moon administration pardoning former President Park Geun-hye while withholding the grant from [Lee], who is older than Park and has a shorter sentence than Park did, is another kind of political retaliation” and an act of “dividing and conquering.”

Such concerted calls for a pardon for Lee seem to be rooted in Yoon’s belief that the matter should be resolved before his inauguration as president. Yoon is attempting to arrange Lee’s special pardon via Moon for two different factors: first, to personally pardon a conservative former president imprisoned for personal corruption charges immediately upon taking office would be too politically burdensome for Yoon; plus, as the very person who orchestrated the probe that led to Lee’s arrest and prosecution as chief prosecutor of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, Yoon would make a fool of himself if he were to take the initiative to pardon Lee.

Yoon’s camp is making the case for Lee’s pardon by highlighting the 1997 precedent of then-President-elect Kim Dae-jung requesting then-President Kim Young-sam to pardon Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, which Kim Young-sam accepted in the name of uniting the nation. However, critics say Yoon’s request for a presidential pardon for Lee is inappropriate, as it’s being made on behalf of the political camp Yoon is a part of. In contrast, Kim Dae-jung made the pardon request for Chun and Roh as the very victim of the two former presidents’ dictatorships, for the sake of reconciliation and unity among the citizenry.

A key official of the current ruling Democratic Party slammed the idea of a pardon for Lee, asking, “[If the presidential pardon request] is for national unity, shouldn’t [Yoon] suggest a pardon for someone in the opposing political camp? What kind of national unity is [Yoon promoting]?”

Meanwhile, the Blue House refrained from commenting on the matter, stating that “granting a special pardon is the prerogative of the president.” Some within political circles project that Moon may make the tough decision to accept Yoon’s pardon request, as this year’s presidential election demonstrated how deeply entrenched the opposition between political camps has become in South Korea.

Kwon even argued that the Moon administration “withheld a special pardon for Lee for a later date in order to [pardon Lee] together with Kim Kyoung-soo, former governor of South Gyeongsang Province and a close associate of Moon’s.” A high-ranking Blue House official responded to Kwon’s statement by calling it “highly inappropriate,” stating that “the President-elect’s entourage saying this and that is not desirable and an impropriety against the President-elect himself.”

The People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy released a statement saying that “A pardon for Lee, who was sentenced to 17 years in prison for abusing his authority as president to receive bribery, is preposterous,” adding that “President-elect Yoon personally asking for a presidential pardon for Lee as the very person who orchestrated the probe [against the former president] as Chief Prosecutor of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office does not hold water.”

Lee was sentenced to 17 years in prison in addition to 13 billion won (US$10.5 million) in fines for embezzling 25.2 million won from auto parts company DAS and receiving bribes from Samsung in the form of legal fees for DAS amounting to 8.9 million won.

By Kim Mi-na, staff reporter; Lee Wan, staff reporter; Kim Yoon-ju, staff reporter; Lee Woo-yun, staff reporter

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