South Korean lawmakers accepted a vote to issue an arrest warrant for the leader of the main opposition party on graft accusations, a move that might splinter the organisation ahead of an April national election.
The vote means Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung will face court to contest his arrest over the charges.
The motion was accepted by a margin of 149 to 136, with six abstained votes and four invalid in a secret ballot with 295 votes cast.
Separately, the parliament decided to fire Prime Minister Han Duck-soo due to a number of failed government policies, such as the disastrous Halloween crush, the slow reaction to heavy rains and flooding, and the heavily criticized World Scout Jamboree.
The motion was apparently passed against the prime minister for the first time in South Korea, but it is not legally binding, and President Yoon Suk Yeol is expected to reject it.
According to reports, when Lee was governor of Gyeonggi Province, he asked a company to unlawfully transfer $8 million to North Korea.
He is also accused of failing to discharge his duties when a municipal development organization lost 20 billion won ($15 million) during his tenure as mayor of Seongnam.
Lee has rejected all charges of wrongdoing, calling them “fiction” and a “political conspiracy.”
He and many members of his party have criticised the investigations against him as a political witch hunt.
Lee narrowly lost to Yoon, a former chief prosecutor, in the presidential election last year.
On Wednesday, Lee urged lawmakers to vote against the motion and stop what he called “prosecution dictatorship” by the Yoon government in a social media post, despite having promised earlier not to use his parliamentary immunity.
“Over 300 raids have been conducted by the prosecution. But nothing has come out,” Lee said.
Lee was not present in the plenary session to vote. He has been on hunger strike since August 31.
President Yoon is currently in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly.
South Korea’s next parliamentary elections are scheduled for April next year.
