On February 27, the National Assembly barely rejected the motion to arrest Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, for allegations connected to the development of Daejang-dong and the Uirye New Town and to donations for the Seongnam Football Club (F.C.). More legislators voted in favor of the motion than against it, but it failed to obtain the majority of the votes necessary for the arrest and was rejected. Unlike the expectations of the Democratic Party’s leadership, which was confident the motion would be rejected by an overwhelming number of votes, a large number of the party’s lawmakers voted against Lee, leaving a critical blow to his leadership.

On Monday, the National Assembly voted on the motion to arrest Lee Jae-myung. Among the 297 lawmakers present in the session, 139 voted in favor of the arrest, while 138 voted against it. Nine abstained and eleven votes were invalid. In the end, the motion was rejected, because it failed to obtain the necessary majority of the votes (149 votes) with more than half of the registered legislators present. Although there was one more vote in favor of the motion than against it, the motion was dismissed because it was short ten votes.

Ahead of the vote, Minister of Justice Han Dong-hoon argued for the need to arrest Lee. Han said, “In terms of the criminal nature and scale of the crime, the Daejang-dong case, the Uirye case, and the Seongnam F.C. case are all serious crimes and any of them alone would get the perpetrator arrested.” He argued, “The risk of fleeing from the law, which is the grounds for arrest stipulated by law, means the possibility of a heavy sentence when it comes to white-collar crimes.” He continued and said, “The motion for an arrest is a request to have him (Lee) tried in court just like any other citizen.”

Lee made a personal statement and refuted the argument, “The allegations in the warrant are unreasonable.” The major opposition party leader spoke on the Daejang-dong case and said, “Despite that we earned over 550 billion won by actively engaging in administration, they accuse me of dereliction of duty claiming we should have earned more.” He asked, “Then what was the crime in permitting LCT in Busan, the Gongheung District in Yangpyeong, and general private development projects where local governments retrieved 0% of development profits?” As for the Seongnam F.C. donations, Lee explained, “Seongnam F.C. is run with the city budget, so if the club’s revenue increases, support from taxpayers’ money is reduced. Not only does the city of Seongnam benefit from that, but no one can or actually has obtained any personal interests.”

Lee Jae-myung further said, “The Prosecution Service, which pardoned the ‘5 billion won club’ and is not even investigating Deutsch Motors, has assigned over sixty prosecutors to literally comb through Lee Jae-myung for the past year to catch him no matter what,” and asked fellow lawmakers to “send a stern warning against the regression by a government wearing the mask of the rule of law.”

The Democratic Party showed signs of surprise when the motion obtained more support than it had expected. Lee sat in the parliamentary hall with a blank face throughout the proceedings. Now that the motion has been rejected, Lee will not be subject to a court review of his arrest warrant.

After the session, Lee met with reporters and said, “The legislators confirmed that the prosecutors’ arrest warrant request was very unjust in the National Assembly, a hall of public opinion.” He then asked the Yoon Suk-yeol government to use some of the energy utilized to remove opponents, to suppress the opposition party, and to erase traces of the previous government on reviving the people’s livelihoods and the economy. He said, “I will work harder to communicate with our party members and collect more opinions to gather strength and fight against the prosecutorial dictatorship of Yoon Suk-yeol.” Lee remained silent when reporters asked about the Democratic Party votes in favor of his arrest.

An Ho-young, senior spokesperson for the Democratic Party released a comment and said, “We defended democracy from the unjust political oppression of the Yoon Suk-yeol government” and announced, “The Democratic Party will resolutely fight against and defeat the judicial hunting and suppression of the opposition party conducted by the Yoon Suk-yeol government under the guise of the rule of law.”

The People Power Party assessed the latest result and said that Lee practically received a vote of no confidence. The party’s floor leader, Joo Ho-young held an emergency press meeting and said, “Although the motion was rejected, the result was virtually a vote of no confidence for Lee and practically the same as the motion being passed.” Joo demanded Lee take political responsibility and resign as party leader.

Ryu Ho-jeong, spokesperson for the Justice Party on the floor, said in a briefing at the National Assembly, “Lee and the Democratic Party should gravely accept the result,” and added, “The National Assembly must now leave it to the judiciary to identify the truth of the allegations concerning Lee and escape from an exhaustive legal battle.”

The Office of the President did not release an official position. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office announced, “We regret that we cannot even proceed with a court review of the arrest warrant,” and said, “The Prosecution Service will now further investigate the case to clearly identify the truth of the matter and strictly conduct investigations on pending issues.”