Roh’s Campaign Fund Totaled 35 to 40 Billion Won

In connection with the amount of last year’s presidential election campaign funds, President Roh Moo Hyun said Friday, “The total amount of the campaign funds should not exceed 35 billion won to 40 billion won, including legal and illegal funds.”

“The campaign funds reported (to the National Election Commission) amounted to some 26 billion won to 28 billion won. And I am certain that our campaign funds are between 35 billion won and 40 billion won when calculating both legal and illegal campaign funds,’’ President Roh said at a luncheon meeting with officials and civic leaders at the Kangwon Province Police Agency headquarters.

In regard to Roh’s statement, Rep. Kim Sung-soon, a spokesman at Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), replied promptly saying, “Roh’s statement is practically admitting spending 70 billion won to 140 billion won of illegal funds for the presidential election.” The brawl over the amount of the illicit campaign funds is now likely to bulge out once again.

“According to a provision of the election law, if the elected candidate is found to have spent over 1/200 of the maximum election fund limit, the election result can be nullified. Since the limit was 34.18 billion won, if Roh’s camp is found to have spent an additional 170 million, the election result will be invalid,” Park Jin, a spokesman of the Grand National Party (GNP) said, urging to disclose all the related details.

“All the political maneuvers of ‘The Citizens’ Coalition to Redeem Sovereignty,’ including their allegation over illegal exemption of former GNP presidential candidate Lee Hoi-chang’s son all turned out to be groundless. In addition, if illegal excessive expenditures are found, the withdrawal of President Roh will be inevitable,” Park added.

However, taking legal proceedings over the excessive expenditures of the campaign funds is impossible even if they are disclosed because the legal prescription related to them is six months.

In the meantime, Yoon, a spokesman at Chong Wa Dae, said, “We talked to President Roh in person about his remark today, and the president said his comment was not based on certain circumstantial evidences. President Roh made the remark to verify that the total campaign funds did not exceed over 40 billion won, including general expenses of the party.”

“It is not appropriate to calculate the amount of illegal funds by subtracting the total legal amount mentioned by Roh from the total donations. What the president meant to say was that 35 billion won to 40 billion won is not a large sum of campaign funds compared to those of other countries, including the United States.”

Jeong-Hun Kim jnghn@donga.com