SEOUL, South Korea — Prime Minister Lee Wan-koo of South Korea formally stepped down on Monday, apologizing over a scandal in which he was accused of taking an illegal cash gift from a businessman.
Mr. Lee was the second prime minister to resign under President Park Geun-hye. In South Korea, the prime minister’s post is largely a ceremonial job, with the administrative power concentrated in the president. But the minister is the No. 2 official in the government hierarchy, and his stepping down in disgrace reflects poorly on the president.
“I am deeply sorry to the people for causing trouble over the current situation,” Mr. Lee said in a brief farewell speech to his staff on Monday.
Mr. Lee, who took office on Feb. 17, was one of the shortest-serving prime ministers in South Korean history. He now faces a possible summons from prosecutors who want to question him over a bribery allegation.
Mr. Lee offered to step down last Tuesday after an allegation emerged that he took 30 million won, or almost $28,000, in illegal cash donations from a South Korean businessman in 2013. Mr. Lee denied that he received that illegal cash and that he had ties to the businessman, Sung Wan-jong, but calls mounted for his resignation.
Ms. Park accepted his resignation on Monday, shortly after returning from a trip to South America.
Mr. Sung, who faced arrest on corruption charges, hanged himself from a tree on April 9. But hours before he killed himself, he gave a telephone interview to a South Korean newspaper. In the interview and in a handwritten memo found with his body, Mr. Sung detailed illegal cash gifts that he said he had given to Mr. Lee and other important political allies of Ms. Park’s, including both of her former chiefs of staff.
Prosecutors began an investigation, even as the rival political parties campaigned for the election on Wednesday for four vacant parliamentary seats.
Ms. Park’s approval ratings suffered heavily from a ferry sinking that killed more than 300 people a year ago. Mr. Lee’s predecessor, Chung Hong-won, had resigned after the ferry disaster.
But even if South Koreans are disappointed by the Park government’s failure to rescue the ferry passengers and with its recent scandals, they are also skeptical of her party’s main opposition, the New Politics Alliance for Democracy.
Approval ratings for Saenuri, Ms. Park’s party, dropped in the wake of the Lee scandal but were still higher than those of the rival party, according to published survey results.
Ms. Park now faces a grueling task in selecting Mr. Lee’s successor.
Three people she had previously designated as prime minister failed to pass parliamentary hearings or withdrew from the process as allegations of ethical lapses or past wrongdoing surfaced. The repeated failures led her political opponents in Parliament to charge that she was selecting candidates from an extremely small pool of loyal but badly qualified people.
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