[Editorial] Crucial investigation

With Seoul Education Superintendent Kwak No-hyun’s admission that he gave 200 million won to his former rival candidate Park Myung-gi in last year’s election, the prosecution will have no other choice but press charges of election law violation on Kwak, the champion of free school meals and an icon of the leftist causes.

As the investigation started immediately after the botched Seoul residents’ referendum on free school lunches, opposition parties and liberal civic groups are crying political retaliation. But, when it is established money changed hands between the candidates of an election, the law should make a judgment. If proven guilty, Kwak will lose his job that he earned through the June 2, 2010 local elections.

Kwak, formerly a professor at a correspondence course university, won the election as the sole leftist candidate against six conservative contenders. Since he took over the education administration of the capital city, he strongly pushed liberal policies for primary and secondary education, including free school lunches, no corporal punishment and respect for students’ rights.

He portrayed himself as a public servant dedicated to “justice, principles and morality” and vowed to get rid of corruption and inefficiency in the educational administration. He told a press conference Sunday that he delivered money to Park “out of pure goodwill” because the former competitor was struggling in financial difficulties after the election last year.

We cannot understand why he felt such a strong personal responsibility about the former rival’s financial situation, which he described as pushing Park to “the brink of committing suicide.” Park had rejected the liberal circles’ pressure to unify the leftist candidate in Kwak and registered his candidacy with a 50 million won deposit with the election management committee. Park could not retrieve the money because he withdrew after the legal deadline of registration.

The Seoul District Prosecutors’ Office has already put Park in custody. His arrest warrant said he received money from Kwak’s associate on several occasions between February and April this year supposedly in return for his exit from the contest and expressed support for Kwak. Prosecutors suspect that the education chief’s recent appointment of Park as a standing advisor for the development of education in Seoul was another form of “repaying” the favor Park did for him at the eleventh hour.

Kwak may be morally indebted to Park if the latter made his decision out of pure resolve to help the left win the election. Yet, the disclosure of the delivery of money afterwards ― plus his appointment to an advisory position ―- puts the purity of his motivations in doubt. Kwak claimed that his associate, also a man of integrity, rendered financial help for Park out of pure compassion. If so, they should have known better about what the law allows and prohibits.

Education autonomy in Korea has a short history having direct popular votes to elect education superintendents at nine provinces and seven large cities twice so far. Nomination by political parties is not allowed but politics casts its dark shadow over this part of democracy with the left-right confrontation dominating the campaigns across the country.

In the liberals surge in the June 2010 local election, leftist activists took over education offices in Seoul and Gwangju Cities and Gyeonggi, Gangwon, South Jeolla and North Jeolla Provinces. Kwak No-hyun in Seoul made the free school lunch issue one of the primary national agenda with the backing of the opposition-controlled Seoul Metropolitan Council. The first-ever referendum proposed by conservative Mayor Oh Se-hoon failed due to a lack of public interest, and now the fate of the liberal education chief is hanging in the air.

Whoever violated the law will face the judgment of law, but we are most afraid that the prosecution probe will further politicize the teachers’ community and conscientious parents along the left-right divide. To minimize the impact on education, prosecutors are requested to conduct investigation in the fairest manner and Kwak is hoped to cooperate sincerely with them if he wants to defend the integrity of the liberal educators that he is supposed to represent.