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Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, attends a supreme council meeting on Friday. (Yonhap) |
The National Assembly was set to vote on the government's request for consent to arrest opposition leader Lee Jae-myung over corruption charges Monday amid widespread views his Democratic Party will use its majority power to reject the request.
The DP, which holds 169 seats in the 299-member National Assembly, has denounced the prosecution's attempt to arrest Lee as political revenge by President Yoon Suk Yeol against his presidential election rival and vowed to reject the request.
By law, parliamentary consent is necessary to arrest a lawmaker while parliament is in session.
Though the motion is widely expected to be voted down, there are still chances, albeit slim, of it passing if dissenting votes come in large numbers among DP lawmakers and members of the minor opposition Justice Party, and independents vote for it.
Prosecutors had earlier sought an arrest warrant for Lee over development corruption and bribery allegations arising from his time as the mayor of Seongnam, south of Seoul, from 2010-2018. It marked the first time that an arrest warrant has been sought for the head of the country's largest opposition party.
Lee has claimed his innocence, rejecting all allegations against him as fabrication.
The ruling People Power Party has urged Lee to give up his immunity from arrest and show up for a court hearing on the arrest warrant. It has criticized the DP for opening temporary parliamentary sessions to protect its leader from arrest.
If prosecutors fail to win parliamentary consent for Lee's arrest, their arrest warrant request against him is automatically dismissed. In that case, prosecutors are widely expected to indict the opposition leader without detention. (Yonhap)
