[Editorial] All ties between Shincheonji and PPP have to be revealed

Yoon Suk-yeol raises his arms to the gang on the Folks Energy Occasion nationwide conference on Nov. 5, 2021, after successful the occasion’s nomination for president. New allegations have come out that members of a particular non secular group joined the occasion en masse to assist Yoon win the first. (pool picture)

Former members of the Shincheonji non secular motion have publicly alleged that not less than 50,000 followers joined the Folks Energy Occasion, or PPP, Korea’s main conservative political occasion, as a part of a concerted membership drive over the previous 5 years.

In line with a Monday report by tv community JTBC, a former senior member of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus who was concerned within the marketing campaign stated that the church’s ruling council had ordered not less than half of the motion’s followers to hitch the PPP as voting members. By the 2022 presidential election, the supply stated, “not less than 50,000” Shincheonji followers had accomplished that course of.

That lined up with latest testimony by one other former senior member of Shincheonji earlier than a job drive of investigators from the police and the general public prosecutors. In line with that testimony, the variety of Shincheonji followers who had joined the PPP most likely numbered “over 50,000 individuals across the nation.”

After his defeat within the PPP’s presidential major in 2021, Hong Joon-pyo claimed that “100,000 Shincheonji followers had joined the occasion to assist Yoon Suk-yeol.” However that is the primary time that the dimensions of Shincheonji followers within the PPP has been disclosed by church insiders.

Within the closing vote of the PPP major race, Yoon acquired round 210,000 votes in comparison with about 126,000 for Hong from a complete of 360,000 voting members.

The occasion’s major used a blended technique of nationwide polling and votes by occasion members to find out its presidential nominee. Whereas Hong had a 10-point lead over Yoon in a nationwide ballot, he nonetheless misplaced the first due to the massive hole within the vote by occasion members. The 50,000 Shincheonji followers had not all joined the PPP by that point, however relying on their numbers, they may nonetheless have determined the end result of the first.

That’s the reason these revelations can’t be merely disregarded. The extra Shincheonji followers that joined the PPP, the better their influence on occasion primaries going ahead. That makes it troublesome to rule out the chance that PPP primaries have been principally determined by non secular teams resembling Shincheonji and the Unification Church.

Political involvement by non secular teams violates the constitutional precept of the separation of church and state and undermines the inspiration of occasion democracy. And if such involvement takes the type of horse buying and selling between non secular leaders and particular person politicians who trade votes for favors, that’s corrupt and unethical — and certainly, a critical crime.

Yoon’s spouse, Kim Keon-hee, and members of the Unification Church have already been indicted for that type of illicit deal. But it surely’s unknown what deal Shincheonji, which organized a a lot bigger admission drive within the PPP, might have reached with Yoon and his spouse. This time, we have to completely get rid of the unsavory ties between non secular and political teams which can be endangering our democracy.

Beneath these circumstances, the PPP’s insistence that Shincheonji be excluded from a particular counsel probing the Unification Church is neither credible nor persuasive. If something, it arouses suspicions about how a lot the PPP’s present leaders might owe Shincheonji.

The PPP’s subsequent step should be clearing a path for the particular counsel and reducing ties with Shincheonji.

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