June 14 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The South Korean state anti-corruption agency has accused the National Election Commission (NEC) on Tuesday of refusing to collaborate with the investigation opened against it in the framework of an external audit on an alleged case of nepotism.
The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission has indicated that the NEC “is not responding to the investigations despite having agreed to collaborate with the audit” and has requested “full cooperation” to clarify the case.
Although the electoral commission initially refused to cooperate with the investigators, it finally agreed as the pressure against it increased in recent weeks, but especially after the agreement reached between the two major parties in the country, the ruling Partido of Popular Power (PPP) and the opposition Democratic Party, to launch a joint parliamentary investigation.
The anti-corruption agency had thus received the go-ahead to investigate the hiring carried out during the last seven years by the electoral commission given the possibility that the children of former officials would see their jobs guaranteed within the commission due to the influence exerted by their parents.
For its part, the NEC has qualified that it will only accept the audit in specific cases and not in relation to all of its activities and has threatened to take the case to the Constitutional Court to determine whether or not it should be subject to an audit.
