South Korean President Park Geun-hye said she would have zero tolerance for corruption, amid calls for her prime minister to quit over an allegation that he took illegal campaign money from a businessman found dead last week in an apparent suicide.
The scandal threatens to weaken Park politically in the third year of a single five-year term and could damage her ruling Saenuri Party, which faces a parliamentary general election next year for control of the 300-seat assembly.
Prime Minister Lee Han-koo faced a second day of intense questions in parliament today over whether he took 30 million won ($27,000) in 2013 from businessman Sung Wan-jong, who was found last Thursday hanging by his necktie from a tree while under investigation for fraud and bribery.
Park said the allegations Sung made before his death must be investigated.
"I will not forgive anyone who is responsible for corruption or wrongdoing," she said in her first public comment on the scandal since it erupted last Thursday.
Prosecutors found a note on Sung's body making similar accusations, which they said was in his handwriting.
Under a campaign finance law passed in 2004 as the predecessor to the Saenuri Party was battling an earlier bribery scandal before a crucial parliamentary election, political contributions in excess of 100,000 won were made illegal.
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