Democratic Party Chair Lee Jae-myung (left) and the National Innovation Party Chair and former Justice Minister Cho Kuk hold a joint briefing ahead of their meeting at the National Assembly in western Seoul on Tuesday. (Yonhap)

Main opposition leader Lee Jae-myung on Tuesday met former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, who recently launched a political party of his own, exhibiting the possibility of an alliance.

The meeting follows Cho’s move to launch the National Innovation Party on Sunday against the Yoon Suk Yeol administration ahead of the upcoming general election, which some critics say is an attempt to avoid jail time. The Seoul High Court in early February decided to uphold a lower court ruling to sentence the 58-year-old to two years in prison and a 6 million won ($4,518) fine for academic fraud involving his children and peddling influence to interfere with a corruption probe.

“We (both) have a common task – to end the Yoon administration’s tyranny, make the judgment and give hope to our citizens,” Democratic Party of Korea Chair Lee Jae-myung said in a briefing held before he met with Cho at the National Assembly.

Responding to Lee, Cho pledged his party would tackle the role of carrying out “bold” election campaigns in a way "that the Democratic Party would be cautious of doing."

“(Our party) plans to bring out all liberal and progressive voters to the polling place through campaigns such as ‘an early end to the prosecutors’ tyranny’ or ‘take (first lady) Kim Keon Hee to court.’”

The ruling People Power Party has repeatedly criticized the main opposition for weaponizing the current first lady's stock manipulation scandal coupled with a hidden camera footage uploaded last year by a liberal YouTube channel depicting Kim receiving a luxury handbag from a Korean-American pastor.

However, the Democratic Party drew the line on the possibility of selecting candidates from the National Innovation Party to run in the April 10 legislative election as their own, for the moment.

Democratic Party Spokesperson Han Min-soo who accompanied Lee and Cho in the meeting, told reporters that there were “no detailed remarks” on such form of an alliance, when asked about the matter.

In late 2019, Cho was indicted on a dozen charges, including bribery and document fraud in an attempt to send his son and daughter to a prestigious high school and a medical school, respectively. The Seoul Central District Court in February last year convicted Cho of forging documents in the scandal and peddling influence to interfere with a corruption probe involving a Moon confidant. The Seoul High Court upheld the lower court’s decision a year later.

Cho served as justice minister under the liberal Moon administration for only 36 days in October 2019 and stepped down after the scandal broke amid an investigation led by then-Prosecutor General Yoon Suk Yeol's Supreme Prosecutor's Office. He had previously served as Moon's senior presidential secretary for civil affairs from May 2017 to July 2019.