Questions Over Possible Leakage of “Presidential Candidate X-Files”

The Grand National Party (GNP) argued recently that the National Intelligence Service (NIS) is involved in the production and circulation of unidentified negative campaign materials that implicate GNP presidential candidates Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye.

The party’s members of “A Committee Against Political Maneuvering” visited the NIS on July 6 to raise questions over “the NIS’s accountabilities” and whether “the government agency formed a task force team to hurt the party’s presidential candidates’ reputations.” The committee’s leader, Lee Jae-oh (GNP), noted yesterday, “I heard from one official in charge of domestic affairs at the NIS that the agency made a ‘Lee Myung-bak X-file’ between March and September, 2005.”

Despite all this, the GNP could not present conclusive evidence with respect to the intervention for the production and circulation of the “X-files” of the two party candidates. The negative campaign materials recently revealed by ruling party members, however, are not so easily available. Those materials involve cases such as the relocation of Lee’s resident registration, his real-estate corruption scandals, and a report card on the late Choi Tae-Min relative to Park’s negative campaigning. Given this, it is still possible that the a former or incumbent officials at the NIS is involved in the leakage, even if the agency had not directly been put its hand in those cases.

The NIS’s first deputy director Kim Man-bok pledged not to step in politics. He should step forward to find out the real truth of the matter rather than just states that the GNP is being offensive in its political campaigning. If he is willing to get to the bottom of the case, he will be able to reveal the existence of such materials within the NIS system, and if there was any trails of them being transmitted to the outside.

The statements by former Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan and Uri floor leader Chang Young-dal arouse bigger suspicions over NIS intervention in the presidential election. Former Prime Minister Lee said, “A single shot can ruin the GNP’s candidates.” Chang added, “We have important stuff.” Their comments cannot be regarded as mere bravado to reverse their declining popularities. If they have strong ammunition for mudslinging as they hinted with those remarks, we do not need to think twice to guess the source of the materials if the history is any guide.

If the NIS wishes to be reborn as an intelligence agency that has the confidence of the public, it should first block the “invisible hand” involving itself in the upcoming election. If the government agency ignores political neutrality, the NIS will be once again subject to punishment and public criticism.