UDP Urged to Take Responsibility for Negative Campaign

The Grand National Party strongly demanded the United Democratic Party to take responsibility for pushing the so-called “BBK independent counsel bill,” since the suspicions that the then United New Democratic Party raised against President-elect Lee Myung-bak turned out to be groundless.

In a meeting with senior party members on Friday, the GNP decided to dispatch a fact finding team to the U.S. early next week to investigate whether the expatriation of Kim Kyung-joon, who masterminded the BBK stock manipulation scam, was secretly arranged by a political group in an attempt to prevent Lee from winning the presidential election.

Park Kye-dong, chairman of the GNP’s committee to fight political maneuvering, will lead the investigation. His team is expected to stay in the U.S. for a week to interview possible witnesses and visit the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles where Kim was held before his expatriation.

With the upcoming April general elections, the GNP will likely make all-out efforts to denounce the UDP for spearheading a negative campaign over the BBK scandal.

The GNP also publicly demanded that the UDP lawmakers, who took the lead in spreading groundless rumors on Lee during the presidential election, make an apology to the public and retire from politics.

In a general meeting held on the same day, the GNP also agreed to adopt a resolution denouncing the false allegations regarding the BBK case and demanded the UDP make a public apology, saying that negative campaigns and “old politics” must disappear.

“The forces that drove the nation into chaos with an unconstitutional and politically-maneuvered independent counsel must immediately make an apology to the people and sink to their knees to ask for forgiveness,” said GNP Chairman Kang Jae-sup in the meeting. “Those who took the initiatives in launching the negative campaign will not be able to avoid their legal responsibility no matter what. But we urge them to take responsibility for their political maneuver by themselves and take an appropriate measure.”

The GNP also demanded that the UDP pay 960 million won that the special prosecution team used for their probe to the government and reiterated that it will not drop its legal actions against Chung Dong-young, then presidential candidate of the UNDP, for his negative campaign on the BBK scandal.

jkmas@donga.com