#MeToo case causes mayor to leave office
SEOUL — The mayor of South Korea’s secondlargest city resigned Thursday after admitting to sexual misconduct, the latest prominent South Korean to fall as the #MeToo movement has rippled though this maledominated society.
Oh Keodon, the mayor of Busan Metropolitan City on the southeastern tip of South Korea, has been under pressure to resign since a female public servant accused him of sexually assaulting her in his office.
“I made an unnecessary physical contact with the person during a short, fiveminute meeting,” Oh said during a news conference Thursday, as he bowed deeply before cameras and fought back tears.
“I have realized that this could amount to a sexual assault,” he added. “I apologize to the victim and will live the rest of my life in repentance.”
An election will be held next April to choose Oh’s replacement.
Women’s rights groups have been demanding Oh’s resignation after the unidentified female victim reported her case to them.
Busan, with a population of 3.5 million, is the secondlargest city in South Korea — only Seoul is bigger — and is politically conservative. Oh, 71, became the first leftleaning candidate to win the Busan mayor’s job when he and other candidates of President Moon Jaein’s Democratic Party swept elections for bigcity mayors and provincial governors in 2018.
The #MeToo movement took hold in South Korea in January 2018, when Seo Jihyeon, a female prosecutor, appeared on TV to say she had been groped at a funeral in 2010 by a male superior, who banished her to an obscure job after she filed a complaint.
The higherranking prosecutor, Ahn Taegeun, was sentenced to two years in prison in January 2019 for abuse of power. (He could not be charged with sexual assault because the threeyear statute of limitations had expired.)
Then, the following March, a former secretary of Ahn Heejung, a rising star in the Democratic Party and a presidential hopeful, accused the politician of repeatedly raping her while he was governor of South Chungcheong province.
Ahn resigned and was sentenced to 3½ years in prison.