Kweon Seong-dong (Lee Sang-sub/The Korea Herald) Kweon Seong-dong, a five-term lawmaker of the main opposition People Power Party, was stripped of his National Assembly seat on Thursday, as his two-year jail term was confirmed at the Supreme Court over a sweeping scandal linked to the Unification Church.The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the lower court's decision to convict the conservative bigwig of receiving illegal political funds of 100 million won ($67,000) from a senior Unification Church official in January 2022.The court also upheld the lower court's ruling that Kweon forfeit 100 million won.Kweon was floor leader of the People Power Party when former conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol came to power in 2022, and again after Yoon's martial law declaration triggered a political crisis in December 2024.Kweon has been behind bars since September 2025, as the special counsel looked into the 2022 bribery case that it believed was tied to the Unification Church's growing control in the conservative party, with tens of thousands of believers having entered the party, as well as to the Yoon administration's development projects in Cambodia upon the request of the sect.The special counsel indicted Kweon in October the same year.Liberal politicians, including President Lee Jae Myung, have been critical of religious interference in political affairs, as the country separates religions from politics in its Constitution.Kweon became the first lawmaker to lose their seat since May, when the top court confirmed a ruling finding Yang Moon-seok of the Democratic Party of Korea guilty of fraud.With previous vacancies in the 22nd National Assembly filled via parliamentary by-elections in June, the court ruling on Kweon reduced the number of the National Assembly lawmakers to 299, and the number of the main opposition People Power Party from 110 to 109.Kweon represented Gangneung, Gangwon Province, from 2009. A by-election is expected next year.