[Epoch Times December 27, 2021](Hong Kong Epoch Times reporter Wu Huanxin comprehensive report) The Moon Jae-in government suddenly announced an amnesty for former President Park Geun-hye on the grounds of health and national reconciliation, and expressed that this pardon is related to the upcoming presidential election Irrelevant. South Korean public opinion widely believes that it will have a great impact on the election.
On the 24th, the day before Christmas, the Moon Jae-in government suddenly announced an amnesty for Park Geun-hye on December 31. However, according to many Korean media reports, just three days before the announcement of the amnesty, the Ministry of Justice of South Korea also excluded former Presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak from the New Year’s amnesty at a plenary meeting on the 21st to discuss the scope and targets of the amnesty. .
Moon Jae-in said that the amnesty for Park Geun-hye is to promote “national unity” and “a decision made after comprehensively considering factors such as the deterioration of Park Geun-hye’s health in the past five years in prison.”
In fact, since the beginning of this year, there have been constant calls for amnesty for Park Geun-hye, centered on the conservative opposition. However, Moon Jae-in has always had reservations about this. In South Korea, amnesty is the unique power of the incumbent president.
Park Geun-hye became the third president to be pardoned after Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo. Park Geun-hye, who was sentenced to a total of 22 years in prison for the case of cronies and bribery, has served four and nine months in prison, making him the longest-serving former president in South Korean history. Due to poor health, she was hospitalized several times during her sentence. The current medical opinion issued by the doctor shows that her recent illness has relapsed and deteriorated, and her shoulder and waist pains that have been operated before have been painful. And due to the long period of prison life, the mental condition is unstable.
After receiving the amnesty, Park Geun-hye said that despite all kinds of pressure, President Moon Jae-in and the government authorities still made the amnesty decision for him, and he was deeply grateful for this.
Although the South Korean government does not recognize that the amnesty for Park Geun-hye is related to the presidential election next year with only more than 70 days left, South Korean public opinion has widely reported that it is expected to have a great impact on the political situation of the general election.
On November 5, the polling agency Gallup of South Korea released the results of a survey that showed that the rates of opposition to and approval of the amnesty of former presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak were 48% and 44%, respectively, which were within the margin of error.
On the day when the amnesty for Park Geun-hye was announced, Korean media widely reported that both the ruling and the opposition parties were paying close attention to the impact of the amnesty for Park Geun-hye on the election situation. The main candidates for the ruling and opposition presidents have successively stated their positions on this.
Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate of the ruling Common Democratic Party, said: “Understand and respect the difficult decision made by President Moon Jae-in out of consideration of national unity. Although it is too late, it is now necessary for former President Park Geun-hye to treat the people. Make a sincere apology.” Prior to this, Lee Jae-Ming had a negative attitude towards the amnesty to Park Geun-hye.
Yoon Seok-youl, the presidential candidate of the National Power Party, the largest opposition party, welcomed Park Geun-hye’s release. He said: “I heard that Park Geun-hye’s health is deteriorating, and I hope she can recover as soon as possible.” Before, he promised that if he is elected president, he will immediately. Promote an amnesty for Park Geun-hye.
According to the analysis of SBS TV, from the standpoint of Li Zaiming, the amnesty is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, he opposed the amnesty for Park Geun-hye, but Moon Jae-in decisively amnesty, which reduces his political burden and expands his support base in the name of uniting the people. But on the other hand, the core supporters of the Common Democratic Party strongly opposed this, which added a lot of political burden to him. The survey results released by Gallup of South Korea on November 5 showed that 75% of the Democratic Party supporters opposed the amnesty to Park Geun-hye.
From the standpoint of Yin Xirui, Yin Xirui and Park Geun-hye have long-standing grievances. Yin Xirui, who was the inspector general, was the main person in charge of investigating the case of Park Geun-hye’s cronies. If Park Geun-hye remembers the past, there will be a split phenomenon, which may cause fatal damage to Yin Xirui; on the contrary, if Park Geun-hye does not remember the past and expresses such information as the change of power, it will form a situation where Yin Xirui will be plugged in.
Yoon Sanghyu, a member of the National Forces Party who is close to Park Geun-hye and who is now part of the Yin Xirui election camp, told ChannelA TV: “Former President Park Geun-hye is more patriotic than anyone and believes that South Korea should return to normal as soon as possible. So the candidate Yin Xirui’s ideas are the same, so I personally don’t think there will be any problems.”
Recently, both Li Zaiming and Yin Xirui had “fire in the backyard”. Li Zaiming’s son was suspected of participating in gambling and sex trafficking, and Yin Xiyue’s wife was caught in a resume fraud scandal, which caused turmoil in the election.
According to the “comprehensive support rate” analysis results of the poll provided by “the 300” on the 26th, the election support rates of Li Zaiming and Yin Xirui were 35.2% and 35%, respectively, which were 7.7% and 2% lower than the comprehensive support rates of last week. .
Editor in charge: Lian Shuhua#
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