PPP leaders offer to quit emergency committee en masse in bid to form new leadership

SEOUL, Sept. 5 (Yonhap) -- All members of the ruling People Power Party's emergency committee quit Monday in a bid to break up the committee and form a new one after a court effectively ruled the current committee invalid in a suit filed by ousted leader Lee Jun-seok.

The mass resignations came shortly after the party's national committee finalized revising the party's charter in a way that clearly stipulates conditions warranting the formation of an emergency committee so as to allow no room for disputing a new committee to be established.

With Tuesday's charter revision, the PPP can now form an emergency leadership committee in case the party's chairperson position becomes vacant or at least four out of five members of the Supreme Council step down.

Rep. Park Jeong-ha, the PPP's spokesperson, said the mass resignations of the emergency committee members were made to meet the requirement for the leadership transition stipulated in the charter.

The PPP plans to complete the launch of a new emergency leadership committee and its chief Thursday.

The PPP has gone through all this fuss to launch an emergency committee in what critics say was an attempt to remove former party chairman Lee from office.

Lee, whose party membership has been suspended due to allegations of sexual bribery and an attempted cover-up, has filed a string of lawsuits to derail the party's move toward the emergency committee.

nyway@yna.co.kr
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