hankyoreh

Oct. 25. (by Kang Chang-kwang

President Park Geun-hye apologized on Oct. 25 over allegations that her confidante Choi Sun-sil monopolized governance duties - but calls from ruling and opposition party politicians for an investigation and “responsible measures” such as introduction of a special prosecutor and a Blue House reshuffling are only growing louder.

To begin with, many raised questions about the sincerity of Park’s apology. In a talk with reporters just after Park’s press conference, Minjoo Party leader Choo Mi-ae expressed “dismay that President Park spoke of [the incident] is if it were personal business and offered such a maudlin expression of regret.”

“The first thing the President needs to do is get her hands on the evidence that Choi is destroying as we speak and bring her in so that this situation can be quickly put to bed,” Choo added.

In his own meeting with reporters, People’s Party emergency committee chairperson Park Jie-won said he “did not sense any feeling at all in the President’s attitude, the way she focused only on excuses and giving her side without taking any questions.”

“She needs to be more candid in admitting to the allegations that were raised,” he added.

Saenuri Party lawmaker Yoo Seong-min argued, “The core of the issue is whether the law was broken. What the President said falls far short of answering the public’s questions. There needs to be an investigation into any illegalities.”

The opposition parties made Park the new focus of attacks previous made against Blue House Senior Secretary to the President for Civil Affairs Woo Byung-woo.

“Does this mean we haven’t been hearing President Park Geun-hye’s speeches all along, that we’ve been hearing Choi Sun-sil’s speeches instead?,” said Minjoo Party representative Woo Sang-ho in a parliamentary countermeasures meeting that morning. “There’s no way of knowing where these state secrets went after being leaked to Choi Sun-sil’s computer.”

“It’s time for President Park Geun-hye to be investigated,” he declared.

staff photographer)

The issue of Park‘s admission that she did hear opinions from Choi prompted an outpouring of calls for a special prosecutor. In a press conference that afternoon, former People’s Party standing co-representative Ahn Cheol-soo said the Choi incident “is a national disgrace - a collapse that brought the universal order of a democratic republic crashing down.”

“We need to restore the public‘s trampled pride with an investigation that leaves nothing sacred - including a special prosecutor - and the President herself should obviously be a focus of that investigation,” he added.

Saenuri Party leader Lee Jung-hyun responds to reporters‘ questions as he leaves a closed-door meeting of the Saenuri’s leadership on the topic of the Choi Sun-il scandal

In a previous meeting with reporters, Ahn asked, “What kind of country is this?” and said Park “needs to come forward to state the truth and accept all responsibility.”

Former Minjoo Party leader Moon Jae-in released a special statement describing “Choi Sun-sil-gate” as “not a simple abuse of power, not just a scandal, but a collapse of the governance order.”

“Choi Sun-sil needs to be brought back to South Korea immediately and investigated. We must have the resignation of all the Blue House advisers who monopolized governance through their connections with Woo Byung-woo and other behind-the-scenes power brokers, and the Blue House itself must be investigated,” he said.

At the same time, Moon also blasted prosecutors for “wasting time on a case where they should be conducting a search and seizure on the Blue House at once to investigate the allegations.”

“We need a parliamentary audit by the National Assembly to find the truth, and if necessary, we should introduce a special prosecutor for impartial judicial handling,” he continued.

Sohn Hak-kyu, leader of a previous incarnation of the Minjoo Party, said, “This is a unique national scandal, and we should be using all the measures the law allows to impartially investigate the President and everyone else involved, including a parliamentary audit and special prosecutor.”

South Chungcheong Province Gov. Ahn Hee-jung joined the calls for a parliamentary audit and special prosecutor.

“We need an investigation without any sacred cows, and we can’t leave it up to the prosecutors to investigate now,” he said.

Members of the Saenuri Party, its non-mainstream wing in particular, joined the calls for assigning blame to Park Geun-hye. Lawmaker Kim Yong-tae called for a full-scale reshuffling of the Blue House and the resignation of Woo Byung-woo, while hinting at possible calls for Park to leave the party.

“If the ruling and opposition sides agree to introduce a special prosecutor, we hope the President will take all the necessary measures for a fair and impartial investigation, including addressing her party membership,” he said.

Gyeonggi Gov. Nam Kyung-pil spoke out the same day, saying the ruling and opposition parties should “cooperate with the investigation, whether it is a parliamentary audit or special prosecutor‘s investigation, as a way of sharing the truth before posterity.”

Members of the opposition also ratcheted up their criticisms of Park with indirect references to a possible resignation or impeachment. Minjoo Party lawmaker Kim Boo-kyum sent a stark warning in an Oct. 25 Facebook message, noting that former US President Richard Nixon “kept on lying and ultimately had to resign.”

“It was a case of someone bringing disaster on himself by insisting on denying something he could have simply apologized for,” Kim noted.

Justice Party leader Sim Sang-jeung said, “We cannot accept an apology that makes a mockery of the South Korean public with its lies.”

“The public is now talking about impeachment, and if [Park] ignores that anger she will run into resistance from the entire public,” she warned.

By Um Ji-won, Kim Jin-cheol and Song Kyung-hwa, staff reporters

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