Lee Jung-hee, a former co-chairwoman of the minor opposition Unified Progressive Party (UPP), will be summoned later this week to be questioned over her alleged involvement in an election fraud scandal ahead of the general elections in April, prosecutors said Tuesday.
The move comes after her three aides were arrested on charges of rigging the public survey to help her win the single opposition candidacy for a parliamentary seat in Seoul's Gwanak district.
The UPP and the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) chose their single joint candidates for the parliamentary elections in April based on the results of telephone surveys asking voters which contenders they favored.
Lee won the Gwanak race, defeating her rival from the DUP, but dropped out after revelations about her aides' involvement in manipulation of competition results. She also resigned from her leadership post in May, taking responsibility for other election fraud schemes allegedly involving the party.
Prosecutors said they will interrogate the 43-year-old Lee on Friday to see if her aides tampered with a voter survey, and whether she was aware of such facts at the time of the wrongdoing.
Lee has denied her role in the alleged rigging, saying the aides carried out the act "all by themselves." But suspicions mount that the former lawmaker may have masterminded the plan.
The UPP said the decision to summon its ex-chairwoman was an "act of political suppression by prosecutors."
"Lee resigned from her position to take responsibility for alleged fraud even though she was never involved herself," the party spokesman Min Byung-ryul told Yonhap News Agency by phone. "This is all part of a political plot to paint the UPP as the corrupt party. Such acts of political suppression must stop." (Yonhap)