SEOUL — He entered the national stage as Mr. Clean, a tireless crusader in a country rife with high-level corruption. He left disgraced, taking his own life amid suspicion that he had been dirtied by the culture of political bribery he had promised to wipe out
The suicide of former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun on Saturday, days before he was expected to be indicted in an influence-peddling inquiry, left the nation grappling with new and troubling questions about the moral character of its elected leaders.
Throughout South Korea, Saturday was a day of mourning for a leader who represented what many considered to be a crucial shift in their country's politics.
"He was the first real outsider to gain political power in South Korea," said David Kang, head of the Korean Studies Institute at USC. "This is a guy who didn't have family connections or a glittering family background. For the country's conservatives, he was not one of them."
Others were dismissive.
"He was a two-faced person," said Kim Seung-hwan, a senior research associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Seoul. "He set himself up as this crusader who was going to clean up South Korean politics."
"But he left so many questions about the influence of people around him and whether he himself was corrupt. For Koreans, he left behind a lot of frustration."
Roh, 62, who jumped to his death from a rocky promontory near his home in the southern city of Busan, also leaves a hard-luck legacy of a flawed leader perhaps too human for the righteous agenda he swore to pursue.
With his emphasis on national sovereignty and independence from superpowers such as the United States, supporters say, Roh symbolized South Korea's progress toward becoming a more liberal and independent democracy.
But critics say history will not be so kind to Roh, whose five-year term ended last year.
Often contentious and insecure, he lacked the leadership skills to rally a nation that craved a new political direction. He defied conservative wisdom to pursue more lenient policies toward North Korea and questioned his own qualifications for the nation's top political post.
Roh's roots were different from those of his presidential predecessors, mostly wealthy men who moved into national politics.
