S.Korean parliament approves nomination of prime minister

SEOUL, May 31 (Xinhua) — South Korea’s parliament on Wednesday approved the nomination of Lee Nak-yon as the first prime minister.

The 299-seat National Assembly passed the nomination with 164 votes in favor. Present for the vote was 188 lawmakers.

By law, the nominee is required to get consent from a majority of legislators.

President Moon Jae-in is allowed to appoint his cabinet members with recommendations from the prime minister.

When Moon was sworn in as president on May 10, he named Lee as his government’s first prime minister to form his cabinet.

The current cabinet members were holdovers from the previous government.

Opposition lawmakers, however, objected to the appointment for alleged wrongdoings that Lee’s family members committed some two decades ago.

Lee’s wife was accused of registering a false address in 1989 to be assigned to her favorite school as a teacher.

On his campaign trail, Moon pledged to exclude anyone who is involved in the five major wrongdoings from public posts. The five misdeeds include the fake resident registration, draft dodging, tax evasion, paper plagiarism and speculative investment in real estate.

Under the previous conservative governments, most of senior post nominees falsely registered their addresses for the purpose of speculative investment in real estate and land.

The main opposition Liberty Korea Party, which controls 107 parliamentary seats, refused to participate in the vote.