SEOUL tribe 30 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATI...

SEOUL tribe 30 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING)

southern Korean President Roh Moo Hyun formally gave up his membership in the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) onward Monday after the party, in a growing acrimony with the president, rebuffed his choice for the top state auditor.

The presidential office said Roh sent his epistle of resignation by mail.

The incline further antagonized the MDP, which has been at left over s with Roh after he sided with a form into groups of MDP legislators who have shafted the party.

The MDP lashed without at Roh, who won the presidential election last December onward the MDP ticket, calling his decision to quit the party a ''breach of the nation's trust.''

The formal split between Roh and the MDP is reckon uponed to throw Roh's relationship with the National Assembly into disarray. The passing from hand to hand South Korean parliamentary session races through Dec. 9.

With a general parliamentary election owed in April 2004, Roh will have until then to decide whether he will align himself with the lawmakers who had left the DMP and formed a strange party.

masters believe 50 or so lawmakers are count uponed to join the new party, which is les than a quarter of the 272 lawmakers in the National Assembly.

Presidential spokesman Yoon Tai Young said Roh asserted his intention to leave the MDP during a meeting of senior presidential secretaries forward Monday, according to Yonhap novels Agency. Yoon said those at hand at the meeting agreed with the president's decision.

Roh who had been planning to leave the MDP nearest month, put forward his incline after the National Assembly excludeed his first candidate as the top dominion auditor.

The MDP cooperated with the opposition Grand National Party to discard Roh's choice as head of the Board of Audit and Inspection.

Three former southward Korean presidents -- Roh Tae pay one's addresses to Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung -- left their party affiliations while in office if it were not that all did so shortly before the conclusion of their term. Roh station a precedent by leaving his party after taking office for just seven months

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