President Lee Myung-bak on Saturday accepted a senior aide's offer to resign over allegations of his involvement in a vote-buying scandal that has hit the ruling party hard ahead of general elections in April.
Lee accepted the resignation after his return from a trip to four Arab nations, according to a key presidential official.
Kim Hyo-jae, the president's senior political affairs secretary, offered to resign on Friday after news reports that prosecutors may summon him in their investigation of allegations that former National Assembly Speaker Park Hee-tae bribed fellow Grand National Party lawmakers before he was elected as party leader in 2008. The party recently renamed itself the Saenuri Party.
"President Lee accepted Kim's resignation offer," the presidential official said, "but he made no special comment on this."
Prosecutors said they have secured testimony that Kim's former aide delivered envelopes of cash to lawmakers before a vote to choose a new party chief that year, indicating Kim may have played a key role in the bribery scandal.
Kim's resignation offer came after Park had stepped down to take responsibility for the affair.
Kim was the policy monitoring chief for Park's election camp before being appointed as a senior presidential secretary last year.
The presidential office plans to take time to carefully appoint Kim's successor, officials said. (Yonhap)