Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, May 6 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's largest opposition party, the Communist Democratic Party, said on the 5th that the party asked the Seoul High Court to postpone the retrial of the case involved in presidential candidate Lee Jae-ming until after the presidential election. If the court makes a verdict before the presidential election, Lee Jae-ming's eligibility for the election may be affected.

  On April 27, in Gaoyang, South Korea, Lee Jae-ming delivered a speech after being elected as the presidential candidate of the Co-Democratic Party. Posted by Xinhua News Agency (photo taken by full break)

  Yoon Hao-chung, a senior official of the Co-Democratic Party’s Election Countermeasures Committee, said at a press conference that day that the party asked the Seoul High Court to make a decision to postpone the retrial of the Lee Jae-ming case 12 days ago, before the presidential election canvassing campaign began. If the court does not postpone the retrial, the Co-Democrats will mobilize Congress to impose "punishment."

  According to South Korean media, Yoon Haozhong's "punishment" refers to the possibility that the Communist Democratic Party may impeach the President of the South Korean Grand Court (Supreme Court).

  On the 1st of this month, the South Korean Grand Court made a third-instance judgment on Lee Jae-ming's suspected violation of the Public Office Election Law, overturned the second-instance acquittal and sent the case back to the Seoul High Court for retrial. The Seoul High Court is scheduled to hold its first trial on the 15th.

  Lee Jae-ming faces judicial risks to bring uncertainty to his presidential campaign path. The Public Office Election Law stipulates that when a candidate is sentenced to a fine of more than 1 million won for election-related crimes, he will be deprived of his right to be elected for five years; if he is sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment or above, the deprivation period will be extended to 10 years. If you do not have the right to be elected, you will not be able to run for president.

  South Korea's 21st presidential election is scheduled to be held on June 3. The poll results released by the polling agency "Real Meter" on the 5th showed that assuming the election was in a "three-person showdown", Lee Jae-ming's approval rating was 46.6%, Kim Moon-soo, the candidate for the Kuomintang Party, had a support rating of 27.8%, and Lee Jun-seok, the candidate for the reform new party, had a support rating of 7.5%. If the candidates participating in the showdown are Lee Jae-ming, former Prime Minister Han De-soo and Lee Jun-seok, the three of them have support ratings of 46.5%, 34.3% and 5.9% respectively. (Zhang Jing)

[Editor in charge: Shi Ge]