Police said Thursday that they will summon a former leader of a minor opposition party next week for questioning over her alleged involvement in survey tampering ahead of April‘s general elections.

Aides of Lee Jung-hee, former co-chairperson of the left-wing Unified Progressive Party (UPP), were arrested on charges of rigging the public survey to help her win the single opposition candidacy for a parliamentary seat in Seoul’s Gwanak district during the general elections.

Lee has denied her role in the alleged public survey rigging but suspicions mount that the former lawmaker may have masterminded the plan.

She won the primary by defeating a rival from the main opposition Democratic United Party but dropped out of the race after the scandal arose. She then resigned from her leadership post in May, taking responsibility for the survey fraud.

The Gwanak Police Station, which has jurisdiction over the case, said they sent a request for Lee to appear on Monday.

Lee‘s aides allegedly attempted to boost her ratings to win the survey designed to select the candidate for each constituency most likely to win.

Police have taken three of them into custody and booked 41 party members without physical detention for the alleged survey tampering. (Yonhap News)