SEOUL, South Korea — With less than one month left in office, the departing president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, granted special pardons on Tuesday to political allies, a longtime friend and dozens of others who have been convicted of corruption and other crimes. The pardons ignited a rare quarrel between him and the president-elect.

The office of the incoming president, Park Geun-hye, had warned Mr. Lee for days not to “abuse his presidential power” by granting pardons in his last days in office that would “go against the will of the people.”

Mr. Lee ignored that appeal. “This is not an abuse of presidential authority,” Mr. Lee was quoted by his office as saying during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. “It is carried out according to law and procedure.” His office said Mr. Lee noted that far fewer people had been granted presidential clemency during his five years in office than under his predecessors.

The highly unusual dispute between Mr. Lee and Ms. Park, who are members of the governing Saenuri Party, rekindled a long-running controversy in South Korea over the president’s clemency power. Presidents typically issue pardons several times during their terms, often just before national holidays, and hundreds or thousands of people at a time may be freed from prison or have restored civil rights that were revoked by a criminal conviction, like the right to run for political office. But the beneficiaries have often been prominent politicians, big businessmen and close associates of the president. Civic groups and others complain that such pardons help foster persistent corruption among the country’s political and business elite by allowing the well connected to escape justice.