The People Power Party’s ethics committee suspended former chairman Lee Jun-seok from the party for one year in addition to a six-month suspension announced in July.
In July, the committee said he failed to maintain the standards required of a party leader. Lee was investigated by the committee for allegedly accepting sexual services paid for by a businessman in 2013 and abetting an attempt to destroy evidence of the incident.
His Friday suspension means he no longer can hold the chairmanship of the party. Lee was chairman of the conservative party from June 2021.
The ethics committee had taken up another case against Lee over recent remarks about President Yoon Suk-yeol, including a comment comparing Yoon to dog meat, as well as his application for a court injunction in August to block the party’s switch to a new leadership structure.
“Lee violated the party’s constitution, which states that party members are obligated to follow the party’s decisions,” Lee Yang-hee, chair of the ethics committee, told the press on Friday. “Lee not only committed harmful acts to the party and violated its rules, his actions were deemed to have hurt public support of the party.”
![Lee Yang-hee, chairwoman of the ethics committee of the People Power Party on her way to attend the committee's last meeting at the National Assembly in Seoul on Thursday evening before doling out its decision on further disciplinary actions on former party chairman Lee. [NEWS1]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2022/10/07/0326a044-4a0d-474b-b3be-99573bb83152.jpg)
Lee was asked to explain himself to the committee before the decision was made. Its meeting began on 7 p.m. Thursday and went on overnight, but he didn’t show up.
The suspension of Lee might also mean that he can’t run as one of its candidates in a general election in May 2024 since he won’t have a party membership until four months before election day.
BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]
