National Assembly Speaker Rep. Park Hee-tae is under fire from all corners as he keeps silent on bribery allegations.

Park has been accused of bribing Grand National Party lawmakers to secure support in the race for party chairmanship in 2008. The allegations, first made by GNP’s Koh Seung-duk, have led to both GNP and opposition lawmakers calling for Park to step down.

Since Park left the country, investigators have made significant progress, having secured a list seemingly connected to the bribery scheme and e-mail records of Park’s former secretary Koh Myung-jin.

Park, however, has not only remained mostly silent on the issue, aside from denying the allegations, but is also avoiding contact with the media on his 11-day tour to meet parliamentary leaders in Japan, Azerbaijan, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan.

Park left the country on Sunday and is scheduled to return on Wednesday.

While opposition lawmakers have called for the trip to be cut short, Park’s office has maintained that the trip was planned several weeks ago and that canceling appointments would be diplomatically discourteous.

However, Park’s conduct on the tour is fueling criticism.

Although Park is touring the nations in his official capacity as the leader of Korea’s parliament, he has avoided all contact with the media.

Park’s office has chosen not to disclose the details of his schedule in an apparent move to maintain a low profile.

So far, Park has succeeded in remaining elusive to the point that he has hardly been photographed by the Korean media, and photographs that have been released do not show Park meeting with foreign leaders, as local politicians are wont to do on such tours.

By Choi He-suk
(cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)