It is going to be interesting to see how this turns out because can you imagine what would happen if politicians were indicted every time they lied during a campaign?:
Rep. Lee Jae-myung, front center, chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), walks down stairs with other members of his party at Yongsan Station in Seoul, Thursday, to bid farewell to Koreans going to hometowns for Chuseok holiday. The DPK leader was indicted for allegations that he violated the election law. Yonhap
Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung was indicted on Thursday for allegations that he violated the election law by making false statements related to two land development projects in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, while campaigning for the presidential election last year.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office charged Lee, the chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), with election law violations, one day before the expiry of the statute of limitations for his cases.
Lee is suspected of spreading false information related to a land development project in Seongnam’s Daejang-dong, in violation of the election law, by denying knowing a key figure of the project during his presidential campaign.
In a TV interview on Dec. 22 last year, Lee denied acquaintance with Kim Moon-ki, a former head of Seongnam Development Corp.’s project development team, during his time as Seongnam mayor between 2015 and 2016.
Kim was found dead the previous day amid an investigation into his alleged involvement in the Daejang-dong scandal. Civic groups filed complaints against Lee after photos were released showing Lee together with Kim and several others, including some from an extended overseas business trip in January 2015. But Lee has claimed that he did not know Kim because he was a low-level municipal employee.
At this point it is pretty clear that the first lady did rely on plagiarism for her Phd dissertation, but I don’t know what this group is hoping to accomplish that hasn’t already been done. She has already been mocked & shamed publicly and she apologized for her actions:
Rep. Park Hong-geun, fourth from left, floor leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, speaks during the party’s Supreme Council meeting at the National Assembly, Wednesday. Yonhap
First lady Kim Keon-hee has come under fire again, as a group of professors has reignited the allegations that she plagiarized her Ph.D. dissertation and other published papers. She had been cleared of the allegations last month following an eight-month probe by her alma mater, Kookmin University, which stated ultimately that the “statute of limitations of five years for verifying the papers has expired.”
The group of 16 professors from 14 academic associations, called the Pan-academic National Verification Group for the Verification of Suspicions of Plagiarism of First Lady Kim Keon-hee, held a press conference to unveil their findings verifying Kim’s academic misconduct at the Press Center in Seoul, Tuesday. The group claimed that all of Kim’s academic works are “indisputably entangled with plagiarism,” and that they all violate basic academic standards.
According to the group’s findings, a total of 220 out of the 860 sentences in Kim’s Ph.D. dissertation that she produced when she attended Kookmin University’s Graduate School of Techno Design in 2008 were copied and pasted without citing the original sources.
Here appears to be the real reason this group has been formed:
Meanwhile, the ruling People Power Party (PPP) questioned the credibility of the Pan-academic National Verification Group’s findings, claiming that the group supports the DPK and has political intentions.
“As the group’s name may suggest, the verification group pretends to make a scholastic presentation on behalf of the academic community … However, the bottom line is that it is merely a political organization that supports DPK leader Lee Jae-myung,” PPP spokesperson Rep. Park Jung-ha commented on the PPP’s website, Tuesday.
Park said that some of the 14 academic associations that are part of the organization had openly supported Lee during the presidential campaign earlier in March and called on them to “stop deceiving people under the pretext of academic investigation.”
You can read more at the link, but this appears to all just be in retaliation for the ongoing investigation into Lee Jae-myung’s wife.
If President Yoon and the PPP doesn’t get its act together Lee Jae-myung is going to be very difficult to beat in the next election. Fortunately for the PPP the next presidential election is five years from now and lot can happen between now and then:
Main opposition Democratic Party of Korea Chairman Lee Jae-myung raises his arms after being elected to the position during the party’s national convention at the Olympic Gymnastics Arena, Songpa District, Seoul, Sunday. Joint Press Corps
Rep. Lee Jae-myung, who narrowly lost the presidential race against rival Yoon Suk-yeol in March, was elected, Sunday, as the chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK).
The latest victory marks an extraordinary comeback for Lee to the party’s mainstream from his defeat in the presidential election. The two-year chairmanship will assure Lee of his right to recommend candidates for the next general election in 2024. He is anticipated to enjoy uncontested power within the party, paving the way for the 57-year-old to make another presidential bid five years from now.
During the DPK’s national convention at the Olympic Gymnastics Arena in Seoul, Lee secured a total of 77.77 percent of votes to outpace Rep. Park Yong-jin, who garnered 22.23 percent. The number of votes Lee received is the highest on record in the party’s election for a leader.
I don’t remember a President having their approval rating dropping this fast before:
President Yoon Suk-yeol answers reporters’ questions as he arrives for work at the presidential office in Seoul on July 5, 2022. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)
What began as an approval rating of 52 percent in his first week in office was down to 24 percent by the first week of August, or only half of the 48.6 percent he won in votes during the election, according to Gallup Korea.
Yoon’s personnel choices were cited as among the biggest factors behind the slide, the pollster said, as controversy erupted over Education Minister Park Soon-ae’s plan to lower the elementary school entry age to 5. Park resigned last week.
The minister was not the only person to draw fire. Yoon’s decision to abolish the first lady’s office backfired when friends and acquaintances of first lady Kim Keon-hee were found to be accompanying and assisting her on official trips, including on Yoon and Kim’s visit to Spain in June.
Economic challenges weighed heavily on the new administration as prices soared along with the interest rate and exchange rate. The COVID-19 pandemic showed no signs of abating as cases mounted with the spread of new variants, while flash floods in the capital area killed at least a dozen people and exposed deep flaws in the country’s flood control systems.
To add to the administration’s woes, the ruling People Power Party was in a constant state of turmoil that was worsened by the embarrassing disclosure of texts Yoon exchanged with the party’s floor leader in which Yoon was seen backbiting about suspended party leader Lee Jun-seok.
You can read more at the link, but if his numbers continue to decline it makes me wonder if the Korean left will try and invent some way to impeach him like they did to former President Park Geun-hye?
This makes me wonder what the investigation would have determined if President Yoon had lost the election:
An undated file photo of First Lady Kim Keon-hee provided by Yonhap News TV.
A university on Monday cleared First Lady Kim Keon-hee of plagiarism after a monthslong probe into in her academic papers.
Kookmin University in Seoul conducted an investigation into Kim’s four research papers over allegations of misconduct raised last year.
Kim earned her PhD in design at the university in 2008.
The university said its investigating committee concluded her doctoral dissertation and two other papers “constitute neither plagiarism nor research misconduct that seriously deviates from the range normally accepted in the academic disciplines.”
As for the remaining paper, it was impossible to verify whether there had been misconduct, the school said.
This was pretty dumb, you would think these politicians would know better than to have their phones out with cameras around:
Rep. Kweon Seong-dong, acting chair and floor leader of the People Power Party, exchanges a text message during an interpellation session at the National Assembly on July 26, 2022. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)
The acting chairman of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) has apologized after a text conversation he had with President Yoon Suk-yeol was caught on camera, in which Yoon was seen backbiting about suspended party chief Lee Jun-seok.
PPP floor leader Kweon Seong-dong took over as acting leader of the party early this month after the party’s ethics committee suspended Lee’s party membership for six months over allegations of sexual bribery and a cover-up.
On Tuesday, Kweon was caught on press cameras writing a text message to Yoon on his mobile phone. The screen also showed earlier messages from Yoon saying he was happy with the change in the party’s leadership and took a swipe at Lee.
“Our party is doing a good job. We should keep this up,” Yoon wrote in the messages sent via Telegram. “Since the replacement of the party chair who used to shoot upon ourselves, our party has become different.”
Yoon was seen criticizing Lee for focusing on an internal fight rather than attacking the opposition party.
Kweon said in response, “We will uphold your wish, and show unity between the party and the government.”
A sense of buyer's remorse is spreading quickly in online communities frequented by young men who voted for Yoon. Months ago, at least the anti-feminists were excited at his pledge to abolish the gender equality ministry.
Now over 70% of those in their 20s disapprove Yoon.
He hasn’t been President very long, but a 32.5% approval rate is definitely something for the Yoon administration to be concerned about:
President Yoon Suk-yeol’s approval rating fell to 32.5 percent, with his disapproval rating rising to nearly twofold of his approval rating, a survey showed Wednesday.
The Rnsearch poll of 1,045 voters conducted from Saturday to Tuesday showed 32.5 percent of respondents approved of the way Yoon handled state affairs while 63.5 percent gave a negative assessment.
Yoon’s approval rating, which came in at 52.5 percent four weeks earlier, has been trending lower in the past month. After falling to 42.6 percent in the same poll a week ago, it plunged 10.1 percentage points to 32.5 percent this week.
In the same period, those who were unhappy with Yoon’s performance jumped from 43 percent to 63.5 percent.
The latest poll comes amid growing concerns over the economy and political turmoil at the ruling People Power Party (PPP).
Korea has been grappling with rising inflation and global supply chain disruptions, which prompted the central bank to deliver an unprecedented 0.5 percentage point rate hike early Wednesday.
