Lawmaker-elect Moon Dae-sung left the ruling Saenuri Party on Friday as Kookmin University announced that his doctoral thesis appears to have plagiarized from another paper based on their preliminary investigation.

Moon’s defection has left the ruling party with 150 seats, one seat short of a majority, in the 300-member 19th National Assembly that will convene May 30.
“The research ethics committee held a meeting Friday morning and reached the tentative conclusion that a large portion of Moon’s thesis was a result of plagiarism,” the school said in a news briefing. The university will launch a full-fledged inspection of the thesis in question based on the preliminary results, the committee said.

Around the same time, Moon released a press statement that said, “I should not become the source of people’s augmented distrust toward politics, nor should I become a burden on Saenuri’s reform and efforts to win the presidential election.”

Moon won in Busan Saha-B district in the April 11 general elections.

Moon, a former Olympic gold medalist in taekwondo and current member of the International Olympic Committee, has been facing growing calls to give up his party membership and parliamentary seat over the plagiarism allegation, which casts cloud over Rep. Park Geun-hye’s possible presidential bid.

The committee said that much of Moon’s thesis was similar to another thesis written by an author surnamed Kim for Myongji University.

Both theses by Moon and Kim are about proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation stretching and its effects on taekwondo players.

The school ethics committee will form a five-member team including an outside expert for the main investigation within 30 days. Investigation must be completed within 90 days but reassessment may begin upon Moon’s request.

Moon will be stripped of his doctorate if the plagiarism suspicion is confirmed, school officials said.

(jhl@heraldcorp.com)