SEOUL: South Korea's president said that she will allow the parliament to choose her prime minister as she tries to defuse an escalating influence-peddling scandal.
The announcement on Tuesday by Park Geun-hye is a major concession that could severely curtail her ability to govern in the year she has left in her term.
The prime minister Park nominated last week as a way to settle growing anger will apparently be replaced. Opposition and ruling party lawmakers must, however, first agree on someone else.
Earlier on Tuesday, prosecutors raided the Seoul office of Samsung Electronics in connection with the scandal. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said the raid was part of an investigation into the scandal centering on how much Park's longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil meddled in state affairs though she was not a government employee.