[Exclusive] Kim Dae-ho's Past Posts Mentioning Former and Current Presidents Include Harsh Insult "Cruel Bastard"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Cheol-eung] Kim Dae-ho, a candidate expelled from the United Future Party, was found to have used abusive language such as "mojin nyeonnom" (a harsh derogatory term) in past posts mentioning President Moon Jae-in and former President Park Geun-hye.

According to Kim’s blog on the 8th, in a post from October 2017, he wrote, "Anyway, Park Geun-hye had a dictatorship (disregard for the legislature) complex and was also lazy, so aside from the national history textbook and the 2016 nomination, she did not push forward anything aggressively or diligently. Therefore, although she did not solve problems, she did not drastically worsen the problems themselves with absurd policies."

He continued, "However, Moon Jae-in, with 41% approval and early 40% seat share, wields power absurdly and shamelessly using the excessively delegated executive authority from the National Assembly. Meanwhile, the long-standing critical problems in our society are all being overshadowed by the National Intelligence Service’s deep-rooted corruption uproar, the Park Geun-hye cabinet document uproar, and the Park Geun-hye arrest and punishment uproar."

While pointing out the problems of former President Park, he was more critical of President Moon. He further wrote, "Since the domestic investment and employment environment has been severely worsened, naturally companies have no choice but to hold back on investment, startups, and employment... Seeing college graduates desperately searching for jobs truly breaks my heart. What crime did those born between 1990 and 1995, over 700,000 each year, commit to suffer so much by continuously meeting such harsh 'mojin nyeonnom'!!" The tags on this post on Kim’s homepage were 'Moon Jae-in, Park Geun-hye.'

The Central Ethics Committee of the United Future Party held a full meeting that morning and decided to expel Kim, stating, "He committed extremely harmful acts to the party with inappropriate remarks during the election period." This was due to remarks that sparked generational disparagement controversies such as "When you get old, you’re all disabled" and "People in their 30s and 40s are ignorant."

In response, Kim apologized for his remarks but explained that it was not intended as 'elderly disparagement.' He also stated, "I will file a retrial request within 10 days regarding the Ethics Committee’s decision. If necessary, I may also file an injunction."

He was previously involved in the progressive camp and once ran for the National Assembly as a member of the Democratic Party. He worked at Daewoo Motors and publicly expressed criticism of the ruling on the reinstatement of Ssangyong Motor laid-off workers.

According to the Central Election Commission registration data on the day, Kim, born in 1963, graduated from Seoul National University’s Department of Metallurgical Engineering. In the 1980s, he received a 2-year prison sentence with 3 years probation for violating laws related to assemblies and demonstrations, and a 1-year prison sentence with 2 years probation for forgery of private documents. He was exempted from military service due to imprisonment.

He is known to have been involved in student activism followed by labor activism. In 1995, he joined Daewoo Motors and worked there until 2004. In 2006, he founded the 'Social Design Institute,' a think tank representing the progressive camp, and in 2012, he ran as a preliminary candidate for Gwanak-gap under the Democratic Party. According to his homepage, at that time he said, "I thirst with burning desire. Please pour oil so that the flame of hope can blaze brightly."

Afterward, he criticized figures from the activist camp and showed conservative tendencies. In 2014, through a media contribution titled "'The ruling on the reinstatement of Ssangyong Motor laid-off workers is wrong,'" he wrote, "As someone deeply connected to the automobile industry and who has long observed Ssangyong Motor’s struggle for survival, I too was stunned and shed tears of blood from my heart. It was not out of joy. It was because the 'short-sightedness' combined with the judge’s warm heart would cause a ripple effect of real social victims and youth’s tears."

He added, "I want to call Judge Cho’s ruling ‘long violence of short-sightedness.’ It focuses only on the human rights of 20% of people inside the castle who have enjoyed working conditions far above the labor market level, where ‘dismissal is murder,’ and completely ignores the human rights of 80% outside the castle for whom ‘dismissal is painful but just a chance for reemployment,’ a strange sense of justice in our society."

Last year, Kim served as the standing executive chairman of the think tank 'Platform Liberty and Republic,' founded by conservatives and centrists. He later received the United Future Party’s nomination but was ultimately expelled.