Business Associates Donated 200 Million Won For Presidential Election Funds

Ruling Millennium Democratic Party chairman Chyung Dai-chul said Friday: “During last year`s presidential election, in addition to 200 million won from former Goodmorning City president Yoon Chang-yeol, who was jailed last month on bribery charges, embezzlement and fraud, in political funds, 1 billion won was handed to then MDP secretary general Lee Sang-soo, asking him to use it to cover costs needed to prepare for the presidential election. And the total size of money contributed by domestic companies to use in preparation for the presidential election last year was around 20 billion won.”

MDP chairman Chyung mentioned on the size of funds raised for last year`s presidential election in a meeting with reporters Friday by saying, “Last January, when I met with secretary general Lee, he said around 4 billion or 3 billion (which is not clear), was removed. Recently, I was told now only 1 billion won remains.”

A major corruption scandal involving Goodmorning City seems to have threatened to engulf the ruling camp as ruling MDP chairman Chyung admitted to having received a large sum of unaccounted for money. The scandal involving the MDP chairman is expected to evolve into a heated political debate regarding the illegality of the money and who is responsible for any violation regarding the issue.

Last year, the ruling MDP reported the national election committee that it had spent 27.4 billion won for the presidential election. Among the money, 8 billion won was raised through piggy banks from individual Roh supporters and 12.4 billion won was from government subsidies. Although it can be assumed that among the 27.4 billion won, remaining 7 billion had been filled up by contributions from businesses, the MDP will be forced to face mounting suspicions that it used more than 13 billion won worth of unaccounted-for money.

Chairman Chyung said during a MDP general meeting that day that “the money that I accepted from Goodmorning City Chairman Yoon was 420 million won in total. I received 200 million won during the MDP`s in-house leadership contest, in addition to 200 million won received during last year’s presidential campaign.”

“Last December, when I received 200 billion won from the real estate development company chairman at the party headquarters building in Youido, I delivered the money to then MDP secretary general Lee Sang-soo in person. Later, my aide issued receipts for 100 million won under the name of the MDP Seoul chapter and 50 million won under the name of my supporters` group, respectively. I requested that the party’s accounting manager issue a receipt for remaining 50 million won but I was told that the receipt for the money hasn’t been issued yet,” chairman Chyung added.

He continued on the money he had received for his in-house leadership contest, “Last year April, I received 200 million won from chairman Yoon at my place, and gave it directly to former lawmaker Park Jung-hoon, then chief campaigner. And I ordered that my aide issue a receipt for the money that I had received, but I recently confirmed that the receipt has not been issued yet.”

“I delivered former lawmaker Park around 600 to 700 million won. But the total of funds that had been raised during the party leadership campaign exceeded the ceiling of donated money. So I couldn`t issue receipts for a part of the funds. And I have heard that other candidates had spent around 1 to 2 billion won for the campaign,” he claimed.

Chairman Chyung`s Friday remarks reversed his earlier statement that he had only accepted 200 million for the presidential campaign fund last year.

He added, “Although I was received 10 million won for donation in March 2001 and 10 million won in April 2002 from Yoon, I wasn`t asked for any favors from him. I will discuss whether to remain as the party chairman with other lawmakers.”

Meanwhile, Yoo In-tae, senior presidential secretary for political affairs, said: “It is possible for opposition parties to take issue with election funds, but we never claimed that the last presidential campaign was carried out only with “piggy bank” donation from public supporters. After the election, we acknowledged election funds that the MDP had spent during the campaign was composed not only of the “piggy bank” donation but also of other sources of money.”

In response, main opposition Grand National Party spokesperson Park Jin issued a critical commentary regarding the scandal by saying that “the ruling MDP has insisted the last presidential election was carried out in a transparent and fair manner with the help of “piggy bank” donations for public supporters. However, suspicious corruption scandals involving the government and ruling MDP are now snowballing.” The GNP spokesperson urged the government to launch a thorough investigation into the scandal as soon as possible.

Sung-Won Park swpark@donga.com