Tag: Lee Jae-myung

I thought the accusations against Lee Jae-myung’s wife would just go away after the election, but it appears investigators must have some really good evidence to go after her like this:

 The wife of former ruling party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung was grilled by police Tuesday about allegations related to her personal use of a provincial government corporate credit card years ago.

Kim Hye-kyung left the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency in Suwon, 50 kilometers south of Seoul, at about 6:50 p.m. after undergoing five hours of questioning, accompanied by her lawyer.

Upon emerging from the police agency, she was asked by reporters about whether she admitted to suspicions related to her corporate credit card use but did not reply.

Kim is accused of using a credit card of the Gyeonggi government for personal shopping and eating, while her husband was Gyeonggi governor from 2018-2021.

She is also suspected of forcing civil servants to run her personal errands, such as getting drug prescriptions, buying prescription drugs on her behalf and paying for meals at restaurants. 

Allegations of Kim’s corporate credit card misuse and other misconduct surfaced early this year ahead of the March 9 presidential election.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like Lee Jae-myung and Ahn Cheol-soo are going to keep themselves relevant in South Korea’s politics by running for office again in the National Assembly:

Former presidential candidates Lee Jae-myung and Ahn Cheol-soo declared their bids, Sunday, for parliamentary seats in the June 1 by-elections, transforming the event to one of potentially high political stakes. 

Lee of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) is the former Gyeonggi Province governor who lost the March 9 presidential election to President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol by a razor-thin margin, while Ahn Cheol-soo, the head of Yoon’s transition committee, also ran for president and merged his campaign with Yoon’s days prior to the election.

Lee will run for the seat representing Incheon’s Gyeyang-B district, which has been vacant since former DPK Chairman Rep. Song Young-gil resigned to run in the Seoul mayoral election in April, while Ahn will run for seat representing Bundang-A district of Seongnam City, Gyeonggi Province, left by the Kim Eun-hye of the People Power Party (PPP), the former presidential transition committee spokesperson who is now running for the Gyeonggi provincial governor post. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like a consequence of narrowing losing the ROK Presidential is that Lee Jae-myung is now open to being investigated:

Police raided Seongnam City Hall Monday over allegations that former presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung, who was mayor of Seongnam from 2010 to 2018, took donations from companies via the city’s football club, Seongnam FC.  
    
The Bundang Police Precinct announced Monday that they raided five divisions of the city government, including the planning and policy planning divisions. Lee’s home and other locations related to the case were not raided.  
   
“We cannot confirm specific investigation details such as what kind of documents were secured through the raid,” a spokesperson from the Bundang Police Precinct said. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Not smart of Lee Jae-myung to be insulting President Zelenskyy who maybe the most popular leader in the world right now:

Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), has made an apology for his remarks about Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a TV debate Friday regarding the cause of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which drew a backlash both here and abroad. 

“Unlike my intentions, if my words caused misunderstanding to Ukrainians, I lacked the ability to express myself well,” Lee wrote on Facebook, Saturday, adding that his remarks were mainly aimed at pointing out the ill-founded diplomatic and security views of his main rival Yoon Suk-yeol of the People Power Party rather than disparaging the Ukrainian president.

During the TV debate held, Friday, Lee said a novice politician with six months of political experience had become the country’s leader and caused a major clash by inciting Russia with a hasty promise regarding Ukraine’s admission into NATO. (……….)

Denouncing Lee as an international embarrassment, Yoon said he would make an apology to Ukraine on behalf of South Korea, citing posts critical of Lee’s remarks that have been uploaded on Reddit, a popular American online community.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Real estate prices continues to be possibly the hottest topic that voters in Korea care about:

While varying degrees of despondency among non-homeowners are clearly present in the country, Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) infuriated voters in Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province, with an inadvertent comment during the four leading candidates’ second TV debate on Feb. 11. While discussing the country’s current real estate environment, he said that prices of apartments (the most common housing type in Korea) “with an area under 99 square meters in places like Gimpo are only around 200 million won to 300 million won” ($166,000 to $250,000).

While the average apartment in Seoul costs 1.2 billion won now ― a figure that the majority of low- to middle-income earners cannot afford ― Lee’s comment aroused objections that the range of 200 million won to 300 million won is way lower than what many members of the public thought. Lawmakers from the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) questioned whether the candidate is even aware of the country’s unstable housing market, which the current Moon Jae-in administration has been trying to control for so long.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but this is a rare misstep comment by Lee who is usually very polished in regards to what he says publicly.

Anyway President Moon has spent five years trying to do something about rising housing prices and has not succeeded so I would be surprised if either Presidential candidate will be able to do much to ease rising costs.

It must be a slow news day if the media is reaching this much to throw shade on Lee Jae-myung’s wife:

The wife of ruling party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung has come under fire over allegations aides to her husband ran her errands, including picking up packs of beef and getting drug prescriptions and leaving them at her door.

Kim Hye-kyung, the wife of the Democratic Party (DP) presidential nominee, issued an apology Wednesday, five days after SBS TV first reported the claims, saying she took full responsibility for what transpired as she should have drawn a line between personal and official business.

Yonhap

You can read more a the link, but unless there is more that comes out I can’t imagine this is going to sway a Korean voter one way or another.

Considering the ROK’s past history of authoritarians seizing power, I think the five year term has been working very effectively for South Korea:

 Ruling party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung on Tuesday argued for a shift to a four-year presidential term, renewable once, from the current single five-year term, saying he is willing to opt for a shorter term if elected.

“For responsible politics, (South Korea) needs a double, four-year term under which power is decentralized,” Lee of the Democratic Party said during an interview with cable channel MBN. 

“Five years is not a span (sufficient for a president) to plan, enact and execute policies and see the results,” the presidential candidate said. 

He said a constitutional amendment for that shift is needed now, and he is more than willing to accept a shorter four-year term if elected president.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

If you vote for Lee Jae-myung he is promising to help you get more hair if you are suffering from hair loss:

Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), is receiving ardent support from voters who are suffering hair loss, thanks to his campaign pledge to expand national health insurance coverage to include hair regrowth treatments. 

According to an online community platform for people with thinning hair, Tuesday, a number of posts have been uploaded to express their support for the DPK candidate.
“Lee Jae-myung is a Propecia-like figure,” an online user wrote on dcinside, referring to the popular medication for people with thinning hair. Another wrote, “I will ‘implant’ Lee in Cheong Wa Dae.” 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but if a cosmetic procedure such as regrowing hair will be added to the national health insurance program than why shouldn’t nose jobs, breast enhancement, braces, etc. be added as well?

Here is what Lee Jae-myung had to say about his rival’s wife’s resume padding issue and his own son’s legal problems:

On December 29, Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea, shared his opinion on Kim Keon-hee, the wife of the People Power Party’s candidate Yoon Seok-youl, and her apology to the nation for allegedly fabricating her resume and said, “When you say you’re sorry, you should mention why you are sorry, but if you offer an apology like ‘I’ll say I’m sorry because you want me to say it,’ it must make the people receiving the apology feel uncomfortable.”

This morning, Lee Jae-myung appeared on the MBC radio show, Kim Jong-bae’s Focus and during the interview when the host asked Lee’s assessment of Kim’s apology, Lee also said, “As a competitor, I don’t think it is appropriate (for me to give an evaluation).”

He said, “From a broader perspective, I am also destined (for verification). We are choosing a president who is accountable for the fate of the nation as well as the lives of the people in its entirety, and he will be granted immense power. So it is right that we engage in unlimited competition on all factors that will be affected by that power.” He further said, “We need to do so by revealing everything, including family, aides, one’s own self, and the past.”

Lee also spoke on how his son, unlike Kim who made a public apology, did not publicly apologize for his illegal gambling, and said, “The first lady is a public figure who is given authority and support. The president’s son who is an adult is practically a stranger.” Lee continued and said, “I think the people can make their own judgments on the argument that my son should personally make an apology since the wife did,” and added, “Just because someone made an argument does not make it the truth.”

As for the criticism on his returning his master’s thesis following controversy over plagiarism, Lee said, “I returned it because it wasn’t something I absolutely needed in my life, so the school could just cancel it, but they wouldn’t.” He further explained, “I received a letter in the name of my professor, and it said, ‘This is enough for an evening graduate school degree.’ So I asked them to cancel it since I didn’t need it, but the school wouldn’t.”

Kyunghyang Shinmun

You can read more at the link, but you can read more about Lee’s son’s illegal gambling problems as well as the accusations he has been going to a massage parlor at this link. You can read about Lee’s plagiarism of his Master’s degree which he admits to at this link.