The main opposition party on Tuesday called for a special probe into a corruption scandal involving former liberal President Roh Moo-hyun, as pushback against a series of ongoing probes targeting preceding conservative administrations.

The Liberty Korea Party made the call amid the Moon Jae-in government's campaign for eliminating "accumulated ills," involving the former Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye governments, which it rebuked as political retribution.

The partisan dispute over the campaign spelled trouble ahead for the ruling bloc that has striven to secure opposition cooperation in handling growing North Korean threats and passing legislation for Moon's reform agenda.
 

"The bribery allegations involving former President Roh are not something we can condone... Verifying them is what we believe is a process to remove accumulated ills," Chung Woo-taik, the LKP floor leader, said during a party meeting.

Roh, who led the country from 2003-2008, jumped off a cliff to his death near his retirement home in May 2009, amid a probe over graft allegations involving his family members. The incumbent president served as a chief aide to Roh.

Intensifying its offensive against the ruling bloc, the LKP also unveiled a plan to build a task force to delve into "original ills" from the Roh administration. These ills include the provision of aid to Pyongyang, which the LKP argues has contributed to the regime's nuclear program.

The Moon government has pushed to remove the past ills as part of efforts to shore up social justice and public trust.

In recent months, the spy agency, state auditors and prosecution have carried out a range of investigations into past issues such as the alleged blacklist of cultural figures deemed critical of the former governments and the spy agency's purported election interference.

The LKP views these probes as a political move to discredit the conservative bloc.

The ruling Democratic Party denounced the call for a probe into the Roh case as an attempt to "mislead the public and cover up" the purported wrongdoings of the past Lee government.

"Aware that the prosecution cannot press charges against the deceased president, (the LKP) is talking about a probe, and this is tantamount to admitting that it is a political move to cover up the alleged misdeeds of the Lee government," Back Hye-ryun, the party spokeswoman, said in a statement.

The ruling party also doubled down on its call for an "exhaustive" probe into the alleged irregularities involving the Lee government. (Yonhap)