A floor spokesperson for the party on Jan. 28 dismissed the sudden resignation of Choe Si Jung as a trick to cover up the recently disclosed corruption and irregularities, especially the sale of a foreign exchange bank to a U.S. investment company.

The Lee Myung Bak "government" will be punished for having delivered 5 trillion won to a foreign business, the spokesperson said. As a confidant of the present chief executive, Choe committed all sorts of irregularities since March 2008. But now he is trying to evade the blame for them.

Han Myong Suk, chairwoman of the Democratic United Party, said on Monday the blackest of Choe's crimes was that he triggered a serious setback of democracy by gagging the media. She called for foiling the Lee Myung Bak regime's attempts to control the media.