Photo : YONHAP News
Main opposition People Power Party(PPP) leader Jang Dong-hyeok launched a hunger strike to urge the ruling bloc to accept special counsel probes into the political gift scandal involving the Unification Church and alleged bribery in the ruling party’s election nomination process.
Jang began the strike Thursday as his party staged a rally inside the National Assembly to denounce the ruling Democratic Party’s(DP) push to pass a bill to open a new comprehensive special counsel probe into former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s 2024 martial law attempt.
The opposition chief’s hunger strike started about the same time minor Reform Party Rep. Chun Ha-ram stepped up to the podium as the first lawmaker to speak during the conservative opposition bloc’s filibuster against the DP-pushed bill.
Jang said he had pledged to seek all available means to let the public know about the “atrocity” of the ruling side’s disregard for the special investigation on the Unification Church scandal involving politicians from both the ruling and opposition parties.
He then accused the ruling camp of only seeking the additional martial law probe in a bid to gain the upper hand in the June 3 local elections, and ignoring the Unification Church scandal due to fear over a possible demise of the administration.
Earlier in the week, the PPP and the Reform Party joined forces in calling for the two special counsel probes and one factfinding process to scrutinize the prosecution’s decision to forgo an appeal in the Daejang-dong corruption case.