Trap or excessive love of luxury? There Bag of haute couture donated to and accepted by First Lady Kim Keon Hee is shaking up the government South Koreacausing confusion in the majority party and deep concerns about the possible impact on the vote of President Yoon Suk Yeol, who faces elections in April.
The camera
The scandal, reported by the BBC, was triggered by the publication of a video, dated September 2022 according to South Korean media, in which the Protestant priest Choi Jae-young can be seen giving the first lady a gray-blue leather bag containing Christian veal handed over Dior during a meeting at the Seoul headquarters of Covana Contents, an exhibition agency then owned by the president's wife. In the video, First Lady Kim asks the pastor, “But why does he keep giving me these things?” According to the left-wing YouTube channel Voice of Seoul, which published it, the video was shot by Pastor Choi himself using a camera hidden in his watch recorded. The same one he used to take other attached pictures, including the one of purchasing the bag with the clearly visible price tag: three million won, which is over 2,000 euros. However, the law in South Korea prohibits civil servants and their spouses from accepting gifts worth more than 1 million won (at an exchange rate of 687 euros) or gifts totaling more than 3 million won in a fiscal year. Although the video does not explicitly show Ms. Kim accepting the gift, the Korea Herald reports that the presidential office confirmed receipt of the bag, which will now be “managed and stored as government property.”
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The survey
Last March, The Korea Times reported that prosecutors had cleared first lady Kim Keon Hee of corruption charges related to two art exhibitions hosted by Covana Contents when her husband was a senior prosecutor. In December, 53% of respondents thought the first lady's behavior was “inappropriate.” Polls show 69% of voters now want an explanation for the bag donated nearly two years ago as the opposition prepares for battle. All of this is causing unrest both among President Yook, who has been in power since May 2022, and his movement, the Power to the People Party (PPP). The Dior donation scandal also occurred precisely at a time when Yook's popularity, after declining, has struggled to recover in recent months, which is why the Democratic Party in opposition took up the issue to challenge Yoon and the executive to attack. “It makes no sense for the presidential office and the ruling party to continue to ignore the case and treat it as if an apology would put an end to the matter,” said opposition leader Hong Ik-pyo.
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Last week, Kim Kyung-yul, another PPP figurehead, compared the first lady to Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France in the Ancien Régime. In fact, the stock market scandal is the latest in a series of controversies involving South Korea's 51-year-old first lady. The opposition has long accused Kim Keon Hee of being involved in episodes of stock price manipulation. Earlier this month, President Yoon vetoed a bill that would require his wife to be investigated for these crimes. In addition, the Seoul government last year abandoned the project to build a highway due to controversy: construction would have brought financial benefits to First Lady Kim's family and increased land prices, it said. Now the handbag scandal. For Seoul political analyst Rhee Jong-hoon, it is a “political bomb”: “The risks associated with Kim Keon Hee will only increase,” he commented to the Portal news agency.
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The messenger