“There is No Way Out If Pushed Out” – Telltale Fighting of Life or Death within a Political Party

Politics is sinking into the bottomless “slush fund political situation.”

The slush fund political situation has becomes a total war, controlling the risk of each party’s life, with lawmaker Choi Don-woong of the Grand National Party (GNP) admitting he received slush funds from SK Group, along with President Roh’s aide, Choi Do-sul, the former presidential secretary for general affairs.

Putting off its trial to secure a clean political fund, however, politics seems to concentrate its effort on smearing each other’s reputation with infamy.

Because the GNP plans to raise an issue of the “absurdity of President Roh’s close aides” extensively at the sphere of society questions to the government at the National Assembly on October 23, the controversy on the slush fund political situation is expected to be continued for a while.

It is related to the politics’ telltale fighting that a hasty opinion, the slush fund political situation, proves an incentive to lead up to the “Big Bang” for politics.

It is another variable to the slush fund political situation that the prosecutor, which is starting to investigate the SK slush fund scandal, is also investigating lawmaker Choi’s high school classmate Lee Hoi-chang, the former president of the GNP. If the prosecutor investigates Lee, the opposition party is sure to repulse under the pretext of the “political retaliation,” and a political riot will arise. Additionally, because the National Election Commission gave a lawful authoritative interpretation revealing political donors’ real identity to the public, the popular voice will press politicians even harder than before to reveal clearly the entire situation of funding for the last years’ presidential election, especially concerning money from enterprises.

In case the slush fund political situation is long pending, the probability is that the politics’ joint endeavor to save the aftermath of the disrupted national opinion - the confidence evaluation and sending additional troops to Iraq – will be draft.

Therefore, it is worthy of notice whether or not President Roh, who will return to Korea after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summits meeting on October 24, could stand in the breach through meeting with the four political groups’ leaders over the weekend.

Yoon Yeo-joon president of the Youido Institute and member of the GNP said, “Politics will be ruined if the ruling party and the opposition party disclose each other’s fault in turn,” and “It is required for two parties to change their mind that taking this SK slush fund scandal opportunity and stamping out the ill habits of receiving political fund.”

Yeon-Wook Jung jyw11@donga.com