Saenuri steps up attack on opposition lawmaker for cursing at Park

The ruling Saenuri Party, long beleaguered by a money-for-nomination scandal, has shifted to the offensive and vehemently condemned an opposition lawmaker who called Saenuri's leading presidential hopeful Park Geun-hye a "bitch" in an online post earlier this week.

Saenuri chairman Hwang Woo-yea called on parliament's ethics committee to review the remark made by Rep. Lee Jong-kul of the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) in a Twitter account late Sunday, while hundreds of Saenuri female lawmakers and party members held a rally in front of the National Assembly to urge the DUP lawmaker to quit.

The Saenuri chairman said he has asked the party's floor leader Lee Hahn-koo to refer the case to the ethics committee that can take action against lawmakers.

Rep. Lee of the DUP said on his Twitter account that ultimate responsibility for the uproar over Saenuri's money-for-nomination scandal rests with Rep Park, but that the presidential hopeful remained aloof and failed even to make an apology.

"The case is not a case of giving a contribution to win a nomination, but running a nomination business," the four-term lawmaker and member of the DUP's executive council tweeted. "Park owns the party, but the bitch is so haughty, she won't even make a public apology."

Lee initially said his use of the derogatory word was simply an abbreviated form for woman in the Korean language, but after receiving intense flak changed his stance and said it was a typographical error that could easily happen when tweeting.

The DUP lawmaker later changed his position and insisted that some people support his use of the word to describe Park, with some even calling him "mild" for not using a stronger phrase.

Lee added Wednesday that he did not see a need to apologize for his Twitter comment, but relented under pressure and expressed regret over his choice of words.

"I plan to be very cautious in my selection of words in the future," he said on his Twitter account earlier in the day.

In response to Lee's remarks, members of three civic groups also staged a rally in front of DUP headquarters in Seoul and denounced the lawmaker and his party for not properly apologizing to the public.

Related to the rise in public criticism, DUP sources said they were frustrated by the turn of events that adversely affected the party's strategy to focus its attacks on Park.

"Lee remarks only helped to rally Park's supporters behind her at this crucial time and were a grave strategic error," a high-ranking party official said.

Besides stepping up attacks against Lee, Saenuri, which has been fighting off a string of scandals, further lashed out at the release of the DUP's party membership list as was reported by police earlier in the week.

"The party is trying to make light of a grave incident," Saenuri said.

The DUP, however, claimed that the list of 23,000 party members that was released to a Seoul-based event planner contained names that were mostly available to the public. (Yonhap)