The main opposition People Power Party(PPP) has lambasted the Lee Jae Myung administration for including former minor Rebuilding Korea Party leader Cho Kuk and former ruling Democratic Party(DP) Rep. Youn Mee-hyang on its list of candidates for presidential pardons around Liberation Day.

At a party meeting on Friday, PPP acting chief and floor leader Song Eon-seog said if the two were to be pardoned, it would be remembered as the worst political amnesty in history.

Song said Cho’s crimes were those of a person in authority, while his wife, Chung Kyung-sim, also being considered for a pardon, was convicted of purchasing stocks under someone else’s name and using insider information to invest in a private equity fund, similar to the accusations facing DP-turned-independent Rep. Lee Choon-suak.

Former DP Rep. Choe Kang-wook, who was convicted of issuing false internship certificates for Cho’s son to submit when applying to university, is also reportedly being considered for a pardon.

PPP policy chief Kim Jung-jae urged President Lee to immediately discount Cho, who was also convicted of unlawful interference in a government inspection, stressing that the president would be overstepping his authority if he used his right to grant pardons as a tool to repay political debts. 

PPP Rep. Joo Jin-woo posted on social media that pardoning Youn, who was convicted of embezzling donations for Korean victims of Japanese military sexual slavery, would be an abuse of the president’s right to grant pardons for the purpose of electoral collusion.