Amid growing corruption scandal, Prime Minister Lee offers to resign

Posted on : 2015-04-21 11:50 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Facing pressure from the opposition and waning political prospects, Pres. Park to accept resignation once she returns from overseas
 Apr. 15. (by Lee Jeong-woo
Apr. 15. (by Lee Jeong-woo

On Apr. 20, Prime Minister Lee Wan-koo submitted his resignation to President Park Geun-hye, who is currently traveling in Central and South America, the Hankyoreh confirmed. Lee had been under pressure from both the ruling and the opposition parties to step down after his name appeared on the list left by Sung Wan-jong after his recent suicide.

On Monday evening, a high-ranking figure in the ruling Saenuri Party (NFP) told the Hankyoreh on the phone that Lee told President Park he would step down as prime minister.

“Lee was hesitating because he was concerned that it would create a power vacuum for the prime minister to resign while the president is on a trip overseas, but he determined that at the present moment stepping down was the best thing to do,” the party figure said.

The Office of the Prime Minister officially confirmed that Lee had submitted his resignation, and the Blue House subsequently reconfirmed it. President Park is planning to accept Lee’s resignation when she returns to South Korea on Apr. 27.

As a consequence, the cabinet meeting at the Central Government Complex in Seoul on Apr. 21 over which Lee was planning to preside was presided over instead by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Choi Kyung-hwan. Choi returned from a trip to the US on Apr. 20.

 staff photographer)
staff photographer)

Lee seems to have decided to submit his resignation to President Park on Apr. 20 after concluding that he had no other options in the face of intensifying pressure to resign from both sides of the aisle.

On Monday, the Saenuri leadership decided to push for Lee to resign because of his connection with the Sung Wan-jong scandal before Park returned from her trip to Central and South America, and it communicated this to the Blue House and to the Prime Minister both directly and indirectly. This decision was prompted by a growing fear that this scandal could bring down the entire ruling party.

While the upcoming by-elections on Apr. 29 were the most immediate concern, the Saenuri Party was worried that it could find itself beyond hope of a comeback if the scandal dragged on - in danger of being trounced not only in next year’s parliamentary elections but also in the 2017 presidential race.

Previously, the Saenuri Party leadership’s approach to the Lee issue had been to keep an eye on the prosecutors’ investigation and public opinion during Park’s overseas tour from Apr. 16 to 27 and not to make the final decision until her return. Party chairman Kim Moo-hyun urged on Apr. 19 to “wait a week” for news on Lee’s fate.

But the mood in the party began to shift on Apr. 20. In a telephone interview with the Hankyoreh on Monday, a senior Saenuri Party official said the leadership “shared the opinion at today’s closed-door supreme council meeting that Prime Minister Lee should make a decision before the preliminary by-election voting dates of Apr. 24 and 25.”

On the same day, members of Morning Voice, a group of first- and second-term Saenuri Party lawmakers, issued a call for Lee to make a decision about stepping down.

The shift in the Saenuri Party’s position appeared to stem from growing fears that it could lose the initiative in the government if it kept playing for time - especially when the opposition decided on a motion for Lee’s ouster.

“Since Park had said she would decide on the Lee issue after her overseas trip, his resignation was already an accomplished fact. If the opposition party submitted a motion for Lee’s dismissal, it might have looked as if the opposition party had forced Lee to step down,” the senior official in the ruling party said.

Another factor that apparently accelerated calls for Lee to step down sooner than planned was the concern that the ruling party might miss the right timing if it waited until Park’s return, while more and more allegations were revealed like the layers of an onion.

Questions about the veracity of Lee’s statements increased further on Apr. 20 when it turned out that the prime minister, who had previously denied having a “personal relationship” with Sung,“ had in fact tried calling the late former Keangnam Enterprises chairman around 210 times in the year before Sung’s suicide.

Another analysis is that the by-elections on Apr. 29 - only nine days away - affected the shift in the Saenuri Party’s position. As recently as the beginning of the month, the Saenuri Party was expecting to win three of the four seats that are up for grabs - Seoul Gwanak District B, West Incheon and Gangwha B, and Jungwon in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province - while losing in West Gwangju B. But after recent internal polls by the party showed its lead shrinking in these three districts, a sense of crisis settled over the party.

Prime Minister Lee Wan-koo takes an escalator out of the 63 Building in Seoul‘s Yeouido district after reading a statement
Prime Minister Lee Wan-koo takes an escalator out of the 63 Building in Seoul‘s Yeouido district after reading a statement

The party’s mid- and long-range prospects are even worse. The crisis is sure to have an effect on the general election next year and the presidential election in 2017, forcing the Saenuri Party to take swift action to limit damage.

Another factor that likely impelled Lee’s resignation was the announcement by the opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) that it would submit its motion for Lee’s dismissal at a general session of the National Assembly on Apr. 23. Once submitted at that session, the measure would have had to be voted on at another general session within 72 hours. Because Apr. 25 and 26 are on the weekend, Apr. 24 would have been the only possible day for passage. This meant that the motion would automatically have been discarded if the Saenuri Party did not agree to hold a general session that day.

The opposition’s calculation was that the Saenuri Party would bear all the blame for the reported motion being automatically canceled because of the failure to meet the deadline for passage.

"We’re not interested in whether the motion for the Prime Minister’s dismissal gets passed in the plenary session," a senior figure in the NPAD said. "The very fact that the opposition is submitting a dismissal motion is a high-level political move with the public that will place real pressure on the Prime Minister and the ruling party."

By Kim Kyung-wook and Lee Se-young, staff reporters

 

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