The two major rival parties continued to clash over a 2022 conversation between President Yoon Suk Yeol and power broker Myung Tae-kyun, which the opposition cites as proof that the president and the first lady meddled in party politics. 

At a meeting with party representatives and regional office chiefs on Friday, main opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung said the people had expected a law-abiding government, but that the current government seems to have become a lawbreaking government instead.

In an audio file of the conversation in question, which took place May 9, 2022, then-president-elect Yoon can be heard saying he has asked the ruling People Power Party nomination committee to consider candidacy for former Rep. Kim Young-sun. 

Kim was elected to parliament in a by-election in June 2022.

Yoo Sang-bum, the ruling party’s senior member on the parliamentary Legislation Committee, said Yoon never broke any laws. 

Yoo referred to the case of former President Roh Moo-hyun, who was accused of illegal electioneering in 2004 and impeached, but later reinstated by the Constitutional Court.

Myung, a self-styled political consultant, is also suspected of interfering in the ruling party’s candidate nomination process ahead of the April general elections, with the first lady allegedly playing a role.