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| Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean defector who is running for a parliamentary seat in South Korea, speaks at the National Assembly in Seoul on March 3. Korea Times file |
By Jung Min-ho
The main opposition party's election campaign leader has defended Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat and defector, after the ruling party attacked him for his privileged life ahead of Wednesday's general elections.
"Thae has accumulated his wealth through lawful means; he gave many lectures and wrote a book that became a bestseller," Park Hyung-joon, co-chair of the conservative United Future Party's election campaign committee, said during CBS radio's "Kim Hyun-jung's News Show" on Tuesday.
"This shows the stark contrast between South and North Korea. In the South, you can work hard to have property."
Thae, 57, who was North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom, defected to the South with his wife and two sons in 2016. He is now standing for election in Gangnam, one of the nation's richest constituencies, against Kim Sung-gon, a four-term lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK).
After Thae reported his property worth more than 1.8 billion won ($1.5 million) ― financial assets of 975 million won and real estate worth 890 million won ― to register as a candidate, DPK spokesman Park Sang-min attacked him for "living a privileged life" with a fortune and urged him to disclose how he accumulated the wealth.
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