Golf, children and crossed lines: Korea's political battle turns personal

Jang Dong-hyeok: 'President's interests are golf and SNS'

PPP slams Rep. Ju Jin-woo's 'irresponsible' allegations

Ghostwriting probe vs. abuse of public office for children

Democratic Party of Korea leader Kim Min-seok speaks at a supreme council meeting at the National Assembly on Monday. [Yonhap]

As the national audit season keeps ruling and opposition parties locked in daily combat, the political battle has spilled into territory long treated as off-limits — private holiday schedules and lawmakers' children are now being weaponized as flashpoints.

The latest clash centers on Cheong Wa Dae's decision to proactively disclose that President Lee Jae Myung was at a golf course when a shopping arcade ceiling collapsed in Daegu on Saturday.

People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok said at a supreme council meeting Monday that "the president's only interests these days are golf and SNS," adding, "What kind of communication is it to ignore every public call for a change in governance while saying only what you want and scratching only your own side's back?"

Senior Spokesperson Park Sung-hoon, speaking to reporters after the meeting, said the Democratic Party had demanded "minute-by-minute disclosure of the president's whereabouts even for minor disasters" when it was in opposition. "The president may play golf, but the public is furious that he played what amounts to an emperor's round of golf without properly recognizing the gravity of the current situation," Park said.

People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok speaks at a supreme council meeting at the National Assembly on Monday. [Yonhap]

The Democratic Party, meanwhile, trained its fire on PPP lawmaker Ju Jin-woo, who had been preparing a press conference to publicize the fact that the president was golfing at the time of the accident.

Senior supreme council member Choi Min-hee said at the meeting that Rep. Ju "has been consumed with nothing but attacking the president and is now using this as a pretext to track the president's holiday movements." Fellow council member Park Seon-won added that "Rep. Ju's irresponsible allegations and outrageous remarks have gone too far," noting that the facility used was a military fitness center — a workplace — and that the president had not gone to a private golf course for leisure.

Cheong Wa Dae said Sunday that while it is standard practice not to confirm the president's undisclosed or private holiday schedules, it was making an exception "to prevent unnecessary controversy over private, undisclosed holiday schedules," and expressed regret that "the president's private undisclosed schedule is being used for political attacks."

The political fight has also drawn in the children of rival politicians. The Democratic Party renewed its offensive over allegations that the daughter of independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon had her academic paper ghostwritten while she was in high school.

The allegations stem from a paper registered under Han's daughter's name in an international academic journal in 2021. Controversy erupted after a writer named Benson, listed as the digital file's author, told a South Korean media outlet that he had done the work himself.

The Democratic Party issued seven statements on the matter over the weekend. Han fired back on Facebook with a post titled "The Democratic Party's abuse of public office for Kim Min-seok's children," naming Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok, Rep. Kang Deuk-gu — who led the bill sponsorship — and 16 other Democratic Party lawmakers who co-sponsored what Han called an abuse of their public positions for the benefit of Kim's children.

The legislation Han cited is an amendment to the Framework Act on Education that Rep. Kang introduced as the lead sponsor during the 21st National Assembly.

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