North Korea has made one of its clearest attempts thus far to affect the 2012 South Korean presidential election race, declaring that it has evidence that a number of leading Saenuri Party hopefuls made pro-North Korea statements during visits to Pyongyang and threatening to make the information public.

Chosun Central News Agency, citing a “public questionnaire” prepared by the Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, asserted about the alleged pro-North statements, “If all of what Chung Mong Joon, Kim Moon Soo and others said during their visits to Pyongyang is opened to the public, it will just stun all south Koreans.”

“As for Park Geun Hye, she visited Pyongyang in May, 2002 and was received by leader Kim Jong Il,” it went on. “Touring various parts of Pyongyang including the Tower of the Juche Idea and the Mangyongdae Schoolchildren's Palace, she made not a few ‘remarks praising the North’ and had an in-depth discussion on not only on the issue of North-South relations but on internal affairs of South Korea.”

“[North Korea] can make public all what the former and incumbent authorities and ‘lawmakers’ of the South side did and all places they went and all remarks they made while visiting Pyongyang, if necessary. How can they respond to all the disclosures?”

The report also turned to customary anti-American and anti-Japanese sentiment to further encourage confrontation in South Korean society, saying, “The puppet group is set even to pave the way for Japan's reinvasion of Korea though it is the sworn enemy of the nation, not content with toeing the U.S. line,” before adding, “It is the forces following the U.S., not those following the North, that pose a serious problem in South Korea, isn't it?”

Whilst failing to clarify its various claims in question in any way, it continued, “The forces following the U.S. have sold off the interests of the nation lock, stock and barrel and zealously followed their master's moves for confrontation and war, bringing unspeakable misfortune and pain to the nation.”