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Former Rebuilding Korea Party leader Cho Kuk, convicted of college admissions fraud and abuse of power, raises his fist to supporters outside Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province, before beginning his two-year prison term on December 16, 2024. / Source: Yonhap News

Ruling People Power Party (PPP) leadership candidates on August 12 fiercely criticized President Lee Jae-myung’s first Liberation Day special pardons — which included former Rebuilding Korea Party leader Cho Kuk and former lawmaker Yoon Mee-hyang — calling them “worse than a swindler’s pardon.”

Candidate Ahn Cheol-soo wrote on Facebook, “Mr. Lee, you are unfit to be president,” accusing him of “destroying the rule of law and ignoring the Constitution.” He asked whether Lee’s version of a “true Republic of Korea” was a lawless state, adding, “Are you showing young people that if you gain power, your crimes simply disappear?”

Ahn blasted the move as partisan favoritism, saying, “You pardon your allies’ crimes while branding the opposition as an insurrectionist party. The people are watching, and you will face deep regret.”

Candidate Cho Kyung-tae told YTN that employment and college admissions corruption are among “the most socially damaging crimes,” and condemned Cho Kuk’s release after serving less than one-third of his sentence. He also criticized Yoon Mee-hyang for misusing donations intended for former “comfort women,” calling her inclusion in the pardon an abuse of presidential power.

Candidate Kim Moon-soo issued a statement accusing the Lee administration of “parading Cho Kuk and his wife out of prison in a flower palanquin” while seeking to imprison former president Yoon Suk-yeol and First Lady Kim Keon-hee. He warned that “power that tramples on justice will not last” and vowed that public outrage would return to haunt the administration.

Candidate Jang Dong-hyuk denounced the timing of Cho Kuk’s pardon just 100 days before the national college entrance exam, recalling Cho’s “brazen defiance” during his corruption trial. He labeled Yoon Mee-hyang “one of the worst criminals,” accusing her of exploiting victims and “trampling on the nation’s soul.”