President Park Geun-hye and her aides might have had no idea that their premeasured anticorruption drive would boomerang to hit the core of her government.

Prime Minister Lee Wan-koo, who initiated the crackdown last month by declaring an all-out war against corruption, is proving to be the least qualified for the conspicuous role. He said Tuesday he would give up his life if any concrete evidence emerged to back up the suspicion that he had received illicit funds from a deceased construction company owner. His extreme rhetoric, however, has done little to extricate himself from his predicament as calls for his resignation are intensifying.

He was one of the eight figures listed on a memo left behind by Sung Woan-jong, former chairman of Keangnam Enterprises, who committed suicide last week after complaining he was unduly targeted in the prosecution’s investigation into misdeeds involving overseas resources development projects.

Hours before being found dead on a mountain in the northern suburbs of Seoul, he gave a detailed explanation about his transactions with them in a recorded interview to a vernacular daily. Sung disclosed he had given 30 million won ($27,000) to Lee in 2013, when the latter ran in a parliamentary by-election.

Sung certainly made a posthumous success in countering what he regarded as a biased investigation by laying a trap for key confidants to President Park in the last hours of his life. On his list were several figures that played crucial roles in Park’s campaign team for the 2012 presidential election. Three of them have served successively as the chief of presidential staff since Park took office in February 2013.

His revelation, however, has caused a far greater aftershock than he likely could have imagined. Speculation is mounting that the deceased construction company owner had probably handed over money to a wider spectrum of politicians over a longer period. It is only reasonable to raise this suspicion as he is said to have set aside about 3.2 billion won in slush funds from his company coffers from 2007 until last year. Some of his associates say the amount of money he spent building connections with politicians and other influential officials since the 1990s might reach up to 18 billion won.

A senior prosecutor appointed to head the investigation into the allegations made by Sung said the upcoming inquiry would not be limited to those pinpointed by him.

Sung is now portrayed by the local media as someone who embodied the deep-rooted collusion between money and power in Korean society. He might have fretted on this description as inappropriate and exaggerated.

But it does not seem to be an overstatement to say he was smarter than anyone else in weaving business with political connectivity. A dropout from an elementary school in a rural town in South Chungcheong Province, he started business from scratch. As his construction company took root in the region in the 1990s, he began making strenuous and tenacious efforts to expand his connection with politicians and other powerful figures to achieve his commercial ― and eventually political ― ambitions. His keen sense of what would be in his best interest was proven by the fact that he had bet on the ultimate winners in the last three presidential elections.

His company took over Keangnam Enterprises, a larger building firm, in 2003 shortly after liberal President Roh Moo-hyun was inaugurated. During Roh’s five-year tenure, he was granted special amnesty twice in what Justice Ministry officials concede as a rare case. Sung then campaigned for conservative candidates Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye in the 2007 and 2012 presidential polls.

He achieved his dream of becoming a lawmaker by being elected from his home district in the 2012 parliamentary elections. Ironically, his fortune as a shrewd political merchant as described by some commentators went over the top around the time he fulfilled his political goal.

Keangnam Enterprises, with which Sung had merged his original business, began reeling under heavy losses amid sluggish economic conditions at home and abroad. He lost his parliamentary seat last year after being convicted of violating the election law.

He continued to misappropriate money from his company apparently to lobby for salvaging his business and political career ― to no avail this time. He must have felt that his political network glued with money was not as tight as he had believed in his desperate efforts to avoid being targeted by the anticorruption drive. If he had not taken his life, Sung would also have seen Keangnam Enterprises ― which became Korea’s first construction company to go public 42 years ago ― delisted from the local stock exchange Wednesday as its cumulative loss had eroded its equity capital.

He carefully set up a plot to hit the Park administration by letting the list of selected figures be publicized after his suicide. His act of personal revenge, however, might have prompted what could eventually prove to be a crucial momentum for reforming Korea’s money-contaminated politics. If so, his decades of life spent on intertwining business with pursuit for political influence would inadvertently have a positive meaning.

What could make this possible is a thorough and transparent investigation into the traces of his improper dealings with politicians and other influential officials.

President Park said Wednesday she would not condone anyone responsible for corruption in remarks that might be interpreted as signifying the investigation prompted by Sung’s list would go far beyond it. But she should also have mentioned the alleged wrongdoings involving her close associates. And Park now ought to make it clear she would not seek to shield them from the prosecution’s inquiry. This approach is sorely needed to keep the remainder of her presidency from being swept away with the snowballing scandal.

By Kim Kyung-ho

Kim Kyung-ho is an editorial writer for The Korea Herald. He can be reached at khkim@heraldcorp.com. ― Ed.