[Opinion] Kim Young-sam and Lee Hoi-chang

In Buddhism, there is a saying that the brushing of clothes makes a human tie. But the brushing of clothes requires 3,000 ties in previous lives. Former President Kim Young-sam created a tie with Lee Hoi-chang by appointing Lee, then supreme court judge, chairman of the Board of Audit and Inspection in February 1993 without having met him once.

In the beginning, they had good ties. But their relationship began to wobble when Lee, who had been appointed prime minister after the post of chairman of the Board of Audit and Inspection, formally resigned from office after 127 days, expressing dissatisfaction about the exercise of power.

Nevertheless, Kim Young-sam opened up the road to politics for Lee by recruiting him as the director of the then ruling party’s election committee for the general election in April 1996. It was thanks to Kim Young-sam that Lee later established himself as a prominent politician. When the so-called “competition for presidency among nine dragons” was hot in August the same year, 1 year ahead of the presidential election, Kim Young-sam warned Lee that, “There is no future for a maverick.” In response, rather than lowering himself, Lee protested to his ‘boss,’ saying that, “There is no future for an undemocratic party.”

It was around October 1997 that the relations between the two turned decisively bad. Lee, seeing his approval rate as a presidential candidate nosediving due to suspicions regarding the military service of his two sons, chose to counteract this by raising suspicions of a possible slush fund for then National Congress candidate Kim Dae-jung. But Kim Young-sam, against expectations, summoned then Public Prosecutor General Kim Tae-jeong and gave him orders to postpone the investigation until after the presidential election “for the fair management of the election.” This led Lee to ask Kim Young-sam to withdraw from the Party.

When the supporters of Lee went as far as to burn a mascot of Kim Young-sam in Pohang, Gyeongbuk, Kim Young-sam quit the party 40 days before the presidential election. Lee lost the presidential election that year.

Pointing to Lee, who is currently running for president for the third time, Kim Young-sam spoke out against him yesterday, saying, “He is pointing his sword toward the party he once belonged to and its candidate. Be a human being first.” Who do you think has more problems between Kim, who told a 72 year-old presidential candidate to “become a human being first” and Lee, who abandoned the party that enabled him to run for president twice, and who is busy denouncing the official candidate of that party?

Editorial Writer Lee Jin-nyong, jinnyong@donga.com