SEOUL, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's main opposition Liberty Korea Party decided Friday to ask ousted President Park Geun-hye to quit the party, citing acts of damaging the party and losing public support.
The party's ethics committee held a meeting to decide on a punitive measure of Park, in which the party will advise the impeached leader to voluntarily quit.
Unless Park submits the defection document to the party in 10 days, she would automatically be removed from the party membership, according to local media reports.
It would mark the first time that a former South Korean president forcibly loses party affiliation. Former conservative presidents, who were imprisoned for corruption charges, voluntarily broke away from their parties.
Park was removed from her presidency on March 10 when the constitutional court upheld the National Assembly's impeachment bill over the influence-peddling scandal embroiling Park and her longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil.
Since late March, Park was taken into custody and stood trial for multiple charges including bribery and abuse of power. A South Korean court extended Park's detention another six months until next April.
Park's lawyers resigned from their defense, while Park refused to appear in the courtroom earlier this week and said the extended detention was a political retaliation.
The party's ethics committee cited Park's acts of harming the party and alienating voters as reasons for the decision to expel the ousted president.
The Liberty Korea Party was defeated by a wide margin in the May 9 presidential by-election as conservative voters were deeply disappointed at the scandal involving the conservative president.
Ahead of next year's local election to select chiefs of local governments across the country, the Liberty Korea Party has sought to reunify with the minor conservative Righteous Party.
Political experts estimated that Park's expulsion would serve as a cause for some of the Righteous Party members to return back to the main opposition party.
The Righteous Party is composed of former members of the Liberty Korea Party, who broke away from it following the presidential scandal.
