DP chief Lee Jae-myung to sit out vote on motion for own arrest

Politics

Published: 21 Sep. 2023, 15:18

DP chief Lee Jae-myung to sit out vote on motion for own arrest

Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung holds the hand of DP floor leader Park Kwang-on at a hospital in Jungnang District, eastern Seoul, on Thursday morning. Lee has been on an intravenous drip since Monday, when he was admitted for treatment in the middle of his ongoing hunger strike. [YONHAP]

Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung will not attend the parliamentary vote on his arrest motion that is scheduled to take place later this afternoon, party officials said Thursday.

According to the party’s public relations office, Lee will neither attend the vote nor speak in his own defense before the arrest motion against him is put to a vote.

Lee has been on hunger strike since Aug. 31 to protest the Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s economic and foreign policies.

He has been in hospital since Monday, when he was found almost unconscious in his office, his blood sugar levels having fallen sharply.

Prosecutors filed a motion for parliamentary consent to arrest Lee later that day, accusing him of committing various corruption charges, including bribery and breach of trust.

The gravest of these accusations is that he violated international sanctions and committed bribery through a third party by asking underwear company Ssangbangwool to illegally transfer $8 million to North Korea, purportedly to arrange his visit to Pyongyang and engage in inter-Korean economic cooperation with Gyeonggi, where the DP leader served as governor from 2018 to 2021.

If found guilty of all the charges against him, Lee could be sentenced to between 11 years’ and lifetime imprisonment, according to legal experts.

In comments to DP floor leader Park Kwang-on, who came to visit him in hospital on Thursday, Lee said that “things only appear to be changing for the worse,” but also said that “the situation can be turned around if we try our best.”

In a post uploaded to Facebook the previous day, Lee urged lawmakers to “put a halt to the train of prosecutorial dictatorship at the National Assembly.”

His message was widely interpreted as calling on the DP, which controls a 167-majority in the legislature, to vote against the arrest motion.

Lee previously said he would not ask his party to shield him from arrest.

But in his Facebook post, he argued that prosecutors were “playing politics” by forcing the issue of his arrest to a vote, which he claims is aimed at dividing the DP internally or stoking public backlash against the party if it votes against its leader’s arrest.

Under the Constitution, parliamentary consent is required to arrest sitting lawmakers while the National Assembly is in session.

Lee has criticized prosecutors for seeking his arrest after the legislature reconvened following the summer recess.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]