“7 Hours” MBC Broadcast may affect presidential election in South Korea

Yoon Seok-yeol's wife, Kim Gon-hee, had the poor judgement to engage in numerous telephone conversations over a six month period beginning in July 2021 with a reporter from the Voice of Seoul video channel, Lee Myung-su. The recorded conversations regarded as private by Ms. Kim were transferred to MBC in South Korea for broadcasts planned for 8:20 pm January 16 and 23 on their MBC Straight program. Ms. Kim makes numerous vain, arrogant, intemperate and impolitic admissions in the recordings according to sources with knowledge of the court hearing or the collection of the recordings.

Yoon's supporters filed a petition for injunction to prevent the broadcast alleging the recordings were an invasion of privacy, illegal recording of wire communications, a violation of election laws, and a violation of Ms. Kim's right to remain silent in respect to any ongoing criminal investigations. This is what I have gathered from the commentary from youtube political pundits on the democratic side. On January 14, the court ruled that the broadcast can proceed subject to a two principal restrictions. First, matters subject to criminal investigation against Yoon's wife, such as the pending Deutsche Motors stock manipulation scheme may not be broadcast. Second, purely personal matters concerning Ms. Kim may not be broadcast. Those views that she has expressed involving solely political subjects or opinions on social issues of public concern may be published. The judgement apparently ruled that the wire tapping law did not apply. The privacy violations are apparently being weighed against the South Korean public's right to know the political and social views of the wife of the conservative candidate for president. The court ruled Ms. Kim was a public figure. These are my interpretations of views expressed by South Korean pundits on youtube channels such as 언론 알아야 바꾼다 and 시사건건 and some other news reports including YTN.

This is biggest story in South Korea this year. A google search for Korea news (in English) reveals nothing about this story which has been pending for three days. This may affect US foreign policy markedly. The US and Japan have made no secret of their distaste for the Moon administration and its potential progressive successor as President of South Korea, Lee Jae-myung. The election of Yoon Seok-yeol would markedly change South Korean policy toward North Korea, China and Japan and could result in the virtual abandonment of South Korean efforts to change the relationship with North Korea and maintain friendly relations with China.

Yoon's wife is derisively viewed by critics as "Julie" or "Member Yuji" which are references, respectively, to allegations she was a hostess at the Renaissance Hotel nightclub in her college years and plagiarized her Ph.D. thesis. She is also alleged to be, along with her mother, someone who manipulated the judicial system for private gain, and who is an ignorant superstitious person. She is portrayed by critics as a potential Rasputin type figure similar to Choi Soon-sil, who controlled access to Park Geun-hye, the former impeached president. The feeling is that these allegations are not going to be addressed definitively in the broadcast, because any references to them in the recorded conversations will probably be subject to the partially successful injunction. Yet, it is widely believed that the more than seven hours of recordings will be sufficient to provide enough insight into Kim's views and opinions to reveal a character which is likely to meet with substantial public disapproval. The combined recordings are seven hours forty five minutes in length total and represent over 50 contacts with the Voice of Seoul reporter. Kim's previous public apology for her falsified academic resumes resulted in candidate Yoon Seok-yeol claiming that his wife "hated politics" and would not maintain the office of the first lady at the Blue House if he is elected in the March 9, 2022 presidential election. Disclosures already leaked from the courtroom concerning Kim's statements in the recordings strongly suggest this is a bold faced lie.

Bek Eun-jong, the representative of the Voice of Seoul channel said that he was determined to go ahead and publish anything in the recordings that was not disclosed in the scheduled MBC Strait programming. Much of the speculation of replacing Yoon with another PPP candidate before the mid February official registration of candidates for the presidential election revolves almost entirely around the risk that his wife presents to the election campaign. These developments were entirely predictable but the conservatives felt that with their effective control of the mainstream media and the administration of justice in South Korea that they could contain the dissemination of adverse information about Yoon and his family members. This has been true for the most part, but the only partial success of the injunction may further damage Yoon's campaign.