President Park’s Impeachment Date Set For Friday; Ferry Boat Tragedy Become Major Issue of Dispute
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but the Korean left may be overplaying their hand with including the Sewol ferry tragedy as part of the reason for impeachment:
South Korea’s National Assembly on Thursday officially set the date for the vote on the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye who is at the center of the corruption scandal rocking the country.
The anonymous vote will take place on Friday during the parliamentary session at 3:00 p.m., with the fate of the president to be ultimately decided by the country’s Constitutional Court. Under the parliamentary law, an impeachment motion can be put up for vote 24 hours after being reported at the parliament.
The opposition parties handed in the motion to parliament last week, saying that Park violated the Constitution and other laws by allowing her confidante Choi Soon-sil to exert power in state affairs and enjoy unlawful benefits. State prosecutors have accused Park of being Choi’s accomplice.
A successful passage calls for approval from at least 200 lawmakers from the 300-seat National Assembly. Accordingly, at least 28 lawmakers from the ruling Saenuri Party must give it a nod, even if every single opposition and independent lawmaker votes for the impeachment.
A group of non-Park lawmakers in Saenuri said it has secured support from around 40 lawmakers, but uncertainties remain, with some casting doubts on the level of support.
While the group earlier asked the opposition parties to exclude the sinking of the Sewol ferry, which left more than 300 dead or missing, as one of the grounds for Park’s impeachment, the main opposition Democratic Party said it has no intention to do so.
The opposition parties claim Park failed to protect the safety of the people as stipulated by the Constitution.
The Park dissenters’ group said it will continue to persuade the opposition parties, adding the issue remains one of the major hurdles for Saenuri’s participation in the motion. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but like I have always said what does the political opposition think Park should have done when the ferry boat sunk? Swim out into the ocean and rescue kids herself? If they want to complain about lax safety regulations this has been an ongoing problem in Korea for decades long before Park ever took office. It seems by trying to ram this into the impeachment proceedings will unnecessarily cause uncertainty now on whether the impeachment will pass.
The debate over the Sewol is what animates a lot of my Korean friends. They report themselves as genuinely shocked that so little direction came from the top to get things moving and get the kids rescued, that the President evidently didn’t give a damn about the kids. That may or may not be true, but it’s a widespread perception. Of course, given the crew’s cowardice, and the incompetence of the Coast Guard, even strong direction from the Blue House is unlikely to have saved many more, but still, many of my friends report that this was the beginning of the end of their faith that Park could actually be a decent President. As to whether the inclusion of the Sewol disaster will hurt or help the opposition, I rather think they included it because their constituents feel it’s still a very live issue, thus, they think it will help them. Those who support Park will be seen to be on the wrong side of the Sewol issue, which might make things difficult for them in a future election.
I was kind of surprised at how easily the vote to impeach passed – 234 out of 300 votes for impeachment. It’s still not over yet though – not by a long ways. Now it goes to the Constitutional Court and is decided by the nine judges on the court. The judges are supposed to make a decision based on the merits of the case (Park’s actual illegal activity) – and not on the emotions of the Korean public. It requires six of the nine judges to vote to support impeachment in order to upload the National Assembly’s vote to impeach. Interestingly enough – all nine judges were appointed by either Park or Lee Myung Bak – and it’s a decidedly conservative group of judges. The judges have 180 days to render a decision. Another interesting fact – the term of one of the judges ends in January and the term of another judge ends in March. So if a decision isn’t rendered by March, it will actually require six of seven judges to vote to support impeachment because it’s highly unlikely that new judges will be sworn in until a new President is elected. Roh Moo-hyun was the first Korean President ever impeached (in 2004). The Constitutional Court did not uphold the vote to impeach though. If the Constitutional Court does not uphold the vote to impeach Park, she will immediately be re-instated as President.
It should be interesting.
I’m hoping the judges take her side, because from from my perspective, this was a victory for the angry mob. When buildings, bridges and ships in your country break down around people with alarming regularity, you sort of have to (at a certain point) engage in cultural introspection instead of blaming someone else.
Choi is probably as guilty as OJ. But I’m not seeing much evidence that directly incriminates President Park. All of this happening around Samsung’s exploding phones, Donald Trump’s protectionism, and the upcoming Olympics (potential bankruptcy for the host city) – it’s just not good.
Shinzo Abe probably plans to coax Trump out of any tariffs on JPN products in exchange for some investments in America. He’ll even visit Pearl Harbor! Park should be protecting her nation’s economy too, in this age or nationalism. Instead she’s holed up somewhere.
This reminds me of a liveleak video I watched yesterday:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=782_1481178001