South Korea’s incumbent president faces an impeachment vote on Friday, deepening the country’s political crisis and creating economic uncertainties that have already affected the national currency.
The move to impeach Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who is acting president after President Yoon Suk Yeol was ousted on December 14, has thrown South Korea’s democratic success story into uncharted territory and closely watched, notes Reuters.
Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung announced that his Democratic Party, which has a majority in parliament, was going ahead with a plan to oust the interim president, accusing Han of “acting for insurrection.”
“The only way to normalize the country is to quickly eradicate all insurgent forces,” Lee said in a fiery speech, adding that the party would act on the will of citizens to eliminate those who put the country at risk.
According to opinion polls taken after Yoon’s attempted martial law, the public overwhelmingly supported Yoon’s removal.
The plan for the impeachment vote against Han was announced on Thursday by the opposition Democratic Party, after it refused to immediately appoint three judges to fill vacancies on the Constitutional Court, saying it was over the their limits.
It is unclear how many votes are needed to impeach Han as interim president. The threshold for a prime minister is a simple majority, while a two-thirds majority is required for a president. It is still unclear whether Han and the ruling party will accept the result of the vote.
The finance minister says the country’s economy will be affected
If Han is suspended, Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok will assume the acting presidency by law.
Lee’s impeachment to Han’s impeachment came minutes after Choi warned that impeaching the sitting president would seriously damage the country’s economic credibility and called on political parties to abandon the initiative.
“The economy and people’s livelihoods are on thin ice because of the national emergency and they cannot deal with even greater political uncertainty that will result from another interim president assuming the interim presidency,” he said.
Choi spoke on behalf of the country’s cabinet, along with the rest of the ministers.
Early on Friday, the South Korean won fell to its lowest level since March 2009, as analysts said there was little chance of reversing the negative sentiment generated by political uncertainty.
Appointments at the Constitutional Court, the game of the new conflict
The opposition accuses Han of refusing to make appointments for the three vacancies at the Constitutional Court, which will validate or invalidate – in the next six months – the impeachment of conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol, adopted by a vote by the deputies on December 14, after his failed attempt to impose martial law. law and silence the Parliament by sending the army.
Prime Minister Han Duck-soo provides the interim presidency, and Yoon is suspended pending the verdict of the Constitutional Court, which must be delivered by a two-thirds majority.
But three of the mandates of the Court are vacant due to the retirement of the incumbents in the fall. Three new judges will be appointed, in principle, by the president, on Thursday, from among the candidates chosen by the National Assembly, which is under the control of the opposition.
Han, a 75-year-old former civil servant, says his status as acting president does not give him the power to make important appointments and demands that the selection of judges be subject to an agreement between the People’s Power Party (PPP ). and the formations of the opposition.
The interim president “must refrain from exercising the most important exclusive presidential powers, including appointments to constitutional institutions,” Han justified. “A consensus between the party in power and the opposition in the National Assembly, which represents the people, must be obtained first,” he emphasized.
The deposed president needs only one vote in the Constitutional Court
The Constitutional Court is holding a first hearing on Yoon’s impeachment on Friday. If the three vacancies are not filled at the end of the proceedings, the six sitting judges must make a unanimous decision to remove Yoon from power forever. A single vote against impeachment would lead to his automatic reinstatement.
Han’s refusal to appoint new judges proves that he “has neither the will nor the ability to respect the Constitution,” lamented the head of the Democratic Party’s group of lawmakers in the Assembly, Park Chan-dae.
If the motion presented by the opposition is adopted, it will be the first impeachment of an interim president after that of the incumbent president in the history of South Korea. Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok will become, in this scenario, the new interim president.
The South Korean constitution provides that the National Assembly can impeach the president with a two-thirds majority vote, and the prime minister and other members of the Government with a simple majority. The opposition, which has 192 of the Assembly’s 300 seats, says it needs a simple majority to oust Han since he is prime minister. But the PPP claims, on the contrary, that a two-thirds majority is necessary because Han is the incumbent president.
Yoon Suk Yeol, 64, is being investigated for “rebellion,” a crime punishable by death.
