“The Democratic Party Money Envelope Incident: A Blow to the Integrity of Korea’s National Assembly”

Article 46, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea states that “members of the National Assembly have the duty of integrity.” There are probably many people who did not know that this was even in the Constitution. Obviously there is. All members of the National Assembly take the oath and begin their term of office. “I solemnly swear before the people that I will abide by the Constitution, strive for the promotion of the people’s freedom and welfare, and the peaceful reunification of my country, and put national interests first and conscientiously perform my duties as a member of the National Assembly.” Members of the National Assembly have a constitutional duty to live with integrity. I even took an oath to abide by it. If you do not live with integrity, you have violated the Constitution. You are not qualified to be a member of Parliament. The ripples of the 2021 Democratic National Convention money envelope incident are not subsiding. The full scale and details have not been revealed. Still, if you look at the press reports that have come out so far, you can shed some light on it. In order to elect candidate Song Young-gil, who ran for the party representative election, Rep. Yoon Kwan-seok, who was in charge of the primary camp, and Rep. Seong-man Lee, former Vice-President Lee Jeong-geun, and Kang Rae-gu, auditor of Water Resources Corporation, seem to have raised money and passed it on to some members and chairpersons. It is a matter that needs to be clarified in the future, whether or not this act was caused by the instructions of candidate Song Young-gil at the time, and even if it was not an order, whether candidate Song Young-gil knew or not.

Former CEO Song Young-gil was born in 1963 and is 60 years old this year. He was a former head of the student union at Yonsei University and became a lawyer after passing the bar exam while engaging in student and labor movements. He served as a member of the 16th, 17th, 18th, 20th and 21st National Assembly and mayor of Incheon. He has been in politics for quite some time and has rarely been involved in bribery-related corruption. It seems that the case of the party convention money envelope that broke out this time is a little different. Even if others did it, it was an act I did to get Song Young-gil elected. You may be able to get away from legal responsibility, but it doesn’t seem easy to get away from political responsibility. The money envelope incident is not just a matter of responsibility for former CEO Song Young-gil and a few people around him. The Democratic Party is a party with roots in the old Democratic Party, founded in 1955. It is a political party with a brilliant history, including anti-dictatorship struggles and democratization movements, the first power change through elections, overcoming the foreign exchange crisis, and inter-Korean summits. The fact that they gave and received money envelopes symbolizing corruption and ticket sales at the party convention to elect such a party’s representative is itself a great blow to the pride of the members of the Democratic Party. It is not the ‘Song Young-gil case’, but the ‘Democratic Party case’. The fact that CEO Lee Jae-myeong, who has an excellent ‘tact’ to read public sentiment, made a public apology at the Supreme Council on the morning of the 17th and promised that “we will take responsibility and take appropriate measures according to the confirmed facts” well illustrates the seriousness of the situation. Maybe it’s because you know I think that if the Democratic Party fails to properly deal with this incident, the party leadership, including Chairman Lee Jae-myung, may have to step down altogether. Why are you taking it so seriously? There are precedents. You may remember the money envelope incident at the Grand National Party convention in 2012. At the July 3, 2008 Grand National Party Convention, Rep. Park Hee-tae, supported by the pro-Lee Myung-bak faction, was elected as the representative. After a long time passed, in January 2012, Rep. Koh Seung-deok revealed, “There was an incident where I received an envelope containing 3 million won before the 2008 party convention and returned it.” As the repercussions grew due to additional coverage by the media, the Grand National Party commissioned the prosecution to investigate. This incident led to the resignation of National Assembly Speaker Park Hee-tae and Blue House Senior Secretary for Political Affairs Kim Hyo-jae, who was the head of the camp situation office during the primary election. Prosecutors indicted the two, and the court sentenced former National Assembly Speaker Park Hee-tae to 8 months in prison and 2 years probation, and former Chief Kim Hyo-jae 6 months in prison and 1 year probation. Park Hee-tae, Speaker of the National Assembly, initially dismissed it as “I don’t know,” but later said, “It is true that there was a practice that was slightly outside the scope of the law because of the atmosphere of a family party.” In fact, at the time, it was customary to send money envelopes to party conventions. However, the people did not tolerate such practices, and the courts also condemned them. There is something like this in the judgment. “The crime in this case can damage the basis of representative democracy and party democracy, and it is necessary to raise awareness of the practice in which people in the same position as the defendants have violated the transparency and fairness of elections with money, ignoring the law without much guilt. There is also.”

On May 2, 2021, Representative Song Young-gil (center), who was elected as the new leadership at the central party of the Democratic Party in Yeouido, Seoul, greets. yunhap news

How is it? The same incident that happened at the 2008 Grand National Party Convention occurred at the 2021 Democratic National Convention. Coincidentally, it is the same as the amount of 3 million won. Isn’t it amazing that the old practice of using money envelopes for party conventions has not disappeared until now?

Originally, politics and money are inextricably linked. It is not that long ago in our political history that political funds that did not go through official channels were made illegal. It was not illegal to give and receive political funds as long as there was no compensation. The turning point was the 2003 Grand National Party presidential election fund stealing case. In 2004, a revision of the Political Relations Act, called the Oh Se-hoon Act, was made. It was at this time that the ‘crime of buying and inducing interest in party primary elections’ (currently ‘crimes of buying and inducing interest in party presidential primary elections’) was newly established in the Political Party Act. Since then, political reforms have continued. It is now illegal to receive or use political funds without reporting to the National Election Commission. And yet, politicians are not following the laws they made with their own hands. It’s so disappointing. I had the experience of writing an article for the first time in January 1994, nearly 30 years ago, in the case of the National Assembly Labor Relations Committee’s money envelope. Rep. Mal-ryong Kim, former member of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and former member of the Democratic Party, told me, “I returned the money envelope sent by the managing director of Korea Auto Insurance, but there was no way it was sent only to me. It seems that all the members of the Labor Relations Commission have been handed out money envelopes.” I wrote a small article about the words of Rep. Kim Mal-ryong in the political side. From the next day, the incident grew bigger and developed into the ‘money envelope case of the Labor Committee of the National Assembly’. An investigation was conducted by the prosecution, but the substance was not revealed. What was impressive was the reaction of other members of Congress. Representatives of the Democratic Party, the same opposition party as well as the ruling Democratic Party, criticized Rep. Kim Mal-ryong. He said, “He’s fine if he didn’t take the envelope and returned it. Why bother the other members of Congress?” Representative Kim Mal-ryong ran for Incheon in the 1996 general election, but died of a heart attack shortly after losing the election. He visited the mortuary and paid his condolences, but he remembers being very sad to see that there were almost no mourners. He realized how difficult and lonely it is to stand up to bad practices and accuse injustice through the example of Congressman Mal-ryong Kim. It took a very long time, but past presidents have made significant contributions to the disappearance of the culture and exchange of money in our country’s politics. Immediately after his inauguration, President Kim Young-sam declared and put into practice that he would neither receive nor give political funds. The huge chain of corruption in which chaebols gave political funds to the president and received preferential treatment has been broken. The political funds that the president, the president of the party, sent down to the ruling party are also gone. When President Kim Dae-jung founded the New Political People’s Congress in 1995, he declared that he would not accept donations from national nominations, which had been the practice of political parties until then. As a result of this, national nomination donations gradually disappeared from our politics. In 2008, the Pro-Park Solidarity case of nomination donations broke out, but it failed to reverse the major trend of political reform. In 2003, the Grand National Party’s presidential election fund carjacking case broke out. President Roh Moo-hyun did not order an investigation by the prosecution. didn’t even block it. Not only members of the Grand National Party, such as Choi Don-woong and Seo Jeong-woo, but also members of the Democratic Party, such as Lee Sang-su, Lee Jae-jeong, and Ahn Hee-jung, were arrested. A precedent has been created in which illicit money is punished even if you win the presidential election.

What is the reality of the money envelope incident in this Democratic Party presidential primary? As former CEO Song Young-gil said, is it a personal deviation from former Vice-President Lee Jung-geun? Is it a deviation from some members of the Democratic Party, such as former CEO Song Young-gil and Rep. Yoon Kwan-seok? I don’t think so. The Democratic Party’s money envelope case is perhaps our ugly self-portrait of living in this era. Members of the Democratic Party are demanding an ultra-strong response, such as expelling former representative Song Young-gil from the party. It doesn’t look very good. It’s like a lizard caught by a human struggling to cut off its tail. I think what the Democratic Party lawmakers have to do now is desperate repentance and a public apology.

President Yoon Seok-yeol said in his April 19 commemorative speech this year, “Democracy can be challenged by buying money.” What can a politician who won the presidency say as a candidate of a political party riddled with presidential election fund scandals and party convention money envelope incidents? What can a person who used to be the head of a prosecution organization who is struggling to investigate the ‘5 billion club case’ say? I’ll wrap up. If we are not constantly awakened and vigilant, we will surely corrupt. No one person or group can be exempt. was faced with the biggest crisis since its foundation a while ago due to the money-dealing case of Kim Man-bae, an executive of the editorial department. Until now, I am reflecting and repenting. It will be so for a long time to come. What do you guys think? Senior Correspondent, Political Department shy99@hani.co.kr