SEOUL: A senior official from the presidential office has categorically denied allegations made by an election broker, Myung Tae-kyun, who claimed to have had regular communications with President Yoon Suk Yeol and First Lady Kim Keon Hee during the 2021 campaign for the People Power Party (PPP) presidential nomination.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the controversy began when Myung, who operates a public opinion polling agency, alleged in various media outlets that he met with Yoon and his wife in June 2021 and advised them for about six months until the conclusion of the presidential primaries in November of the same year. Myung described daily speakerphone conversations with the couple, a claim that the presidential office has strongly refuted as “absurd.”
Further clarifications were provided by the presidential office regarding the nature of the text messages exchanged between Myung and Kim. The senior official explained that these were part of a private conversation before President Yoon joined the P
PP in July 2021. One of the messages from Kim, as cited in the reports, stated, “Please forgive our brother (oppa in Korean) for speaking carelessly.” The official emphasized that the “brother” mentioned was Kim’s biological brother, not President Yoon.
Myung is also at the center of a political scandal involving alleged interference by the first lady in PPP candidate nominations ahead of the April general elections. He is accused of leveraging his supposed connections with Yoon and Kim to assist former PPP lawmaker Kim Young-sun in securing a nomination for a by-election in Changwon and Uichang, South Gyeongsang Province, in 2022.