Long regarded as a potential presidential candidate in South Korea, the mayor of Seoul Park Won-soon was found dead on Friday July 10, local media reporting on suicide after allegations of a sexual harassment case. 

The town councilor, 64 years old and who had in his youth fought the military dictatorship then in place in his country, had left his home after leaving a message which made one think of "last words", explained Thursday afternoon her daughter by reporting her disappearance to the police. She added that her phone had been cut and that he had been unreachable for several hours. 

South Korean news agency Yonhap wrote that "he was presumed to have died", but investigators pointed out that there was no record of any written word from him. hand to support such a hypothesis. 

Only certainty, a complaint was filed Wednesday with the police against Park Won-soon by a former member of staff of the town hall of the South Korean capital, without that we know any more official source for the moment. 

Media believed that he was accused of behavior similar to the actions brought to light by the "#MeToo" movement denouncing often unpunished sexual assaults committed by men of power. 

The mayor's lifeless body was discovered in the mountain on the northern outskirts of Seoul, hours after his daughter expressed concerns to the police, whose hundreds of officers participated in the search operations.    

His remains were brought down in the early hours of Friday, AFP journalists said. She was then taken to a hospital.   

Big ambitions  

An emblematic figure of the ruling Democratic Party (center left), Park Won-soon has ruled the capital of South Korea since 2011, which has around ten million inhabitants, almost a fifth of the country's population. 

Many saw him as a potential candidate for the 2022 presidential election in an attempt to succeed the current head of state, Moon Jae-in.  

Questioned on this point by AFP a few months ago, Park Won-soon did not deny the ambitions that were attributed to him in this regard.  

If the suicide hypothesis were confirmed, he would be the highest South Korean politician to have killed himself since former president Roh Moo-hyun threw himself off a cliff in 2009, after being questioned on allegations of corruption against members of his family 

Park Won-soon was a student protestor during the dictatorship of Park Chung Hee (assassinated in late 1979) in South Korea: for having participated in a rally against the military regime, he was fired from Seoul National University in 1975, barely a few weeks after entering it, and imprisoned for four months.  

He subsequently became a lawyer engaged in the fight for respect for human rights, defending as such many political activists in the 1980s and 1990s, while investing in charitable actions. 

At the head of the South Korean capital, Park Won-soon has built a reputation as a hard worker, being very demanding of his subordinates, some of whom would have even committed suicide because of the stress suffered. 

With AFP 

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