South Korean presidential race warms up

By Alex Jensen

SEOUL

South Korean election frontrunner Moon Jae-in condemned the country’s “deep-rooted evils” on Tuesday, as expelled President Park Geun-hye was interrogated for the first time since her arrest.

Park’s detention last Friday came after her parliamentary impeachment was upheld by the Constitutional Court, paving the way for her to face more than a dozen charges -- including bribery and abuse of power.

She spent the day being questioned by state prosecutors at a detention center south of Seoul. Park can be held for 20 days before being indicted or released.

With investigators continuing to uncover a wide-ranging scandal involving dozens of government and business officials, Moon began campaigning Tuesday, vowing to “achieve national unity”.

“[South Korea] has many deep-rooted evils in the shadows of its rapid growth, and our people recently saw the bare face of those deep-rooted evils,” he was quoted as telling reporters by local news agency Yonhap.

After sealing the Democratic Party’s nomination Monday evening, Moon is in a dominant position to succeed Park when the country votes in a snap election on May 9, having consistently polled well ahead of rivals.

A Moon victory could have significant implications for the region given his pro-cooperation stance on North Korea, with whom ties soured almost irreparably under Park.

But he could yet face competition from centrist ex-tech entrepreneur Ahn Cheol-soo, who actually led Moon in a head-to-head contest according to a survey released by The Opinion this week.

Such was the shock of that result, however, that the Democratic Party is reportedly considering referring the matter to the National Election Commission on the grounds of possible bias.

Meanwhile, the conservative interim government led by acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn is pushing to wrap up the deployment of an American THAAD missile defense battery before the election amid calls from liberal circles to delay the plan, which has been strongly criticized by North Korea along with China and Russia.