Disclosed Details Show Huge Difference From Chairman Chyung’s Remark

The ruling Millennium Democratic Party Wednesday revealed that it raised a total of 40.2 billion won in campaign funds between the launching of its campaign committee on Sept. 30 and presidential election day on Dec. 19 and spent 36.1 billion won out of the total.

MDP secretary general Lee Sang-soo disclosed the details of campaign funds raised during the presidential election last year at a press conference, “The ruling party collected a total of 40.3 billion won for the last presidential election. Among the total, some 25.7 billion won of the total was received from the National Election Commission (NEC) before and after the election while 14.5 billion won was donated by supporters.”

The MDP secretary general said, “About 50.7 billion won was collected in individual donations. Among the sum, 760 million won was raised in the “piggy bank” donations contributed by president Roh’s supporters. Subtracting transaction fees and other campaign expenditures, a total of 437 million won was contributed by supporters.”

“Among the total donations amounting to 9.85 billion won, 7.1billion won was handed over by individuals and corporations, with 156 of these donating more than 1 million won. Among the entire donations, 16 donors contributed 200 million won, the maximum amount of individual donations allowed by the current election law, and 24 individuals made donations of between 100 million and 200 million won,” he said. However, the MDP didn’t disclose specific names of individual and corporate donors.

The MDP’ move is expected to drive the political circle into a confrontation because the details of its disclosed campaign funds showed a sharp difference from its chairman Chyung Da-chul’s statement that the MDP collected a total of 20 billion won from corporate donors in campaign funds and whether there was any unaccounted for money is difficult to verify.

The secretary general Lee explained, “The MDP spent 36.1 billion won out of the total, leaving 4.1 billion unused. Among the entire expenditures, 28 billion won was used for election campaigning and 8.1 billion won was attributed to carrying out general party activities.”

“We hope the disclosure paves the way for securing transparency within political funding. In addition, the MDP is willing to revise the current law through negotiations with the Grand National Party (GNP) and release the details on the supporters,” he said.

Meanwhile, main opposition Grand National party spokesperson Park Jin said, “The veracity of the disclosure made by the MDP is questionable. The MDP should reveal all the truths regarding election funds which it received during the last presidential election.” Refusing the president’s proposal to disclose the details of its election funds, GNP spokesman Park Joo-cheon said, “The GNP has not committed any wrongdoings regarding the party`s presidential campaign funds.”

Presidential spokesman Yoon Tae-young said, “Although the president still firmly believe that it is desirable for both the ruling and oppostion parties to come clean about their political funds, he think the ruling party did a laudable and meaningful thing by disclosing the details of election funds.

Sung-Won Park Jeong-Hun Kim swpark@donga.com jnghn@donga.com