'Revenge politics' target S. Korea's opposition

Lee Jae-myung, the newly installed leader of South Korea's largest opposition party, is in the crosshairs of corruption allegations, continuing a seemingly never-ending cycle of "revenge politics" among the country's leading political factions.

Lee, chairman of the Democratic Party, is again under investigation for allegedly being involved in receiving bribes coming from a construction company and a football club tied to lucrative land development permits.

The case stems from 2014, when Lee was the mayor of Seongnam, south of Seoul. Although police did not charge Lee with any crime related to the allegations, the ruling People's Power Party (PPP) filed an objection and have asked prosecutors to continue an investigation.

Lee lost the 2022 presidential election in March to Yoon Suk-yeol of the PPP, who is also a former public prosecutor. 

This comes on top of Lee's indictment earlier this month over allegations that he broke election law in the run-up to the election with false statements involving other land development projects.

Investigators have also questioned Lee's oldest son over claims that he engaged in illegal online gambling and paid for sexual services on several occasions between 2019 and 2021. 

South Korea's legacy of political rivalry

To political observers, the investigations have a familiar ring as allegations of corruption, impropriety and influence-peddling have laid low many of the 12 presidents who have led South Korea since independence in 1948.

Of the three living former presidents, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye have both served substantial prison terms after leaving office.  

And, given that he has only been out of office for six months, former President Moon Jae-in may yet face awkward questions about his tenure office. 

New questions are being asked about vast subsidies linked to renewable energy programs, many of which cannot now be accounted for.

"I think seeking revenge on rival politicians can probably be traced back to General Park Chung-hee, who had his political rival, Kim Dae-jung, kidnapped while he was in exile in Japan in 1971," Lim Eunjung, an associate professor of international studies at Kongju National University, told DW.

Kim was put under house arrest, but ended up outlasting both General Park, who was assassinated in 1979, and a series of military dictatorships to become president in 1998.  

As president Kim did not seek revenge against his rivals.  However, not all of the leaders who followed him have shared this restraint.

The conservative leader Lee Myung-bak, elected in 2008, is widely understood to have encouraged a bribery investigation into his immediate predecessor, Roh Moo-hyun, who died by suicide in May 2009.

Lee was arrested in March 2018 on charges of bribery, embezzlement and tax evasion. He was sentenced in October 2018 to 15 years in prison. 

His immediate successor was Park Geun-hye, South Korea's first female leader and the daughter of General Park Chung-hee.

She was impeached in 2017, before the completion of her five-year term, and convicted on charges of corruption and influence-peddling. 

Dan Pinkston, a professor of international relations at the Seoul campus of Troy University, said South Korea had emerged as a sovereign nation through the horrors of the 1950-53 Korean War, a series of military dictatorships, and then dramatic economic and social development.

"Before 1948, Korea had no tradition of elections or democracy, so the road to where the nation is today has been turbulent," he said. "Leaders and politicians across the country have bent the rules, but it was considered acceptable if things got done."

"Leaders were operating in a sort of gray zone, but it has increasingly become a problem in modern society if they became too greedy or hungry for power," he said.

That gives ambitious rivals an opportunity, but the corruption that is the root cause "is very hard to eradicate completely," he added.  

South Korean public has had enough

Although the feuds are arguably encouraged by partisan media on both sides of the political spectrum, Lim said the public was "very tired" of the bickering and wanted leaders to get back to dealing with the challenges that face the nation. 

"People are very tired of it all; I know I am," she said.

"It has become increasingly difficult for the nation to move forward when we seem to be forever stuck in these cycles of revenge that do little but disrupt and cause damage to the sustained economic growth and social stability that we need," she added.

Lim said it was "difficult to be optimistic."

"Amid all this arguing and the legal moves, we are not focusing our attention on the things that we need to deal with right now. Politicians seem to be obsessed with these fights and scoring points, but they need to start coming to some compromises or negotiate with their opponents. We need to get back to policy and away from the dog fights," she said.

Edited by: Wesley Rahn