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The Korea Herald
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THE INVESTOR
March 29, 2024

Economy

[IMPEACHMENT] Political turbulence casts shadow on New Year

  • PUBLISHED :January 02, 2017 - 18:20
  • UPDATED :January 02, 2017 - 18:24
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[THE INVESTOR] The year 2017 faces a number of political bumps, such as the investigation into President Park Geun-Hye’s corruption charges, a court judgment on her impeachment, and a plausibly earlier-than-planned presidential election -- all stemming from the so-called Choi Soon-sil scandal which rocked the nation late last year.

Tension will be particularly high during the first quarter when it becomes more clear whether the government will hold out or face a drastic end.




President Park, whose power would have weakened gradually until the election of a successor, is now facing a premature end to her presidency -- followed by possible criminal sanctions -- over the corruption allegations.

Instead of mapping out a presidential campaign with former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the ruling Saenuri Party is reeling under an unprecedented party division which is likely to split conservative votes in the forthcoming election.

Meanwhile, all political scenarios rest upon whether the Constitutional Court will uphold the impeachment resolution of President Park -- which is to officially end the suspended president’s term and give way to the next election.

Final decision resides in top court

It is the Constitutional Court’s ruling, deciding whether or not to oust the state chief as requested by the legislature, which holds the key to all future political road maps.

The top court is to hold argument proceedings running from this week until next week in order to give the floor to both sides -- the legislative impeachment committee as plaintiff and President Park as defendant.

The given case includes five issues: whether Park violated the rule of law by covertly letting her civilian aide meddle in key state affairs, abused her power as president, infringed on the media’s freedom of speech, neglected her duty as state leader to protect the people’s lives and received bribes from conglomerates.

The court is to give its ruling by early June at the latest, which will be six months away from the submission of the impeachment resolution, but has signaled that it will speed up the processes so as to minimize the state affairs vacuum.

It not only reduced the grounds for impeachment from the original 13 to five, but also rejected the legislature’s call to summon Park for face-to-face questioning, in apparent fear of wasting time on hoping for her unlikely attendance.

While the majority are speculating the court decision to come out in February, some radical observers argue that it may be moved forward to late January, considering that Chief Justice Park Han-chul’s term is to end on Jan. 31.

“The Constitutional Court will hurry on its moves as it has clearly perceived the president’s power suspension as a crisis in the nation’s constitutional order,” said Han Sang-hee, professor of law at Konkuk University’s Graduate School of Law.

The Constitution states that a presidential election should be held within 60 days from the court‘s impeachment decision.

Independent counsel probe adds pressure

While the probe by the special prosecutor exerts no direct influence on Park’s ouster, it is nevertheless a key indicator which may affect the decision of the Constitutional Court.

The special probe team, led by chief investigator Park Young-soo, has started digging into the five key allegations which constitute Park’s impeachment trial, focusing especially on her bribery charges.

The core suspicion is whether the president acted as junction in the nation’s top conglomerate Samsung Group’s financial support for Chung Yoo-ra, equestrian and daughter of presidential confidante Choi Soon-sil, so as to iron out the difficulties in its power succession plan.

Following the news on Monday that Chung was arrested in Denmark, the special probe team said that it is communicating with the Danish government to have the key witness repatriated back home.

The tenacious investigation into the Park-Samsung connection apparently put pressure upon the suspended president, pushing her to make an unexpected New Year’s Day press conference on Sunday, breaking her long silence since her impeachment bill was passed on Dec. 9.

“Rumors, stories, and broadcasts have been distorted, and false information has been getting out of hand,” she said during a meeting with reporters at Cheong Wa Dae.

But her self-defensive remarks, which came amid the special prosecutor’s accelerating chase over the Samsung-related allegations, were largely deemed a hurried action to hold back the probe.

Time running out on presidential hopefuls

The final decision on Park‘s impeachment, should the top court uphold it, will leave presidential candidates with less than two months to campaign for the top office.

This lack of time was previously thought to be in favor of Moon Jae-in, frontrunner of the main opposition Democratic Party, especially as former UN official Ban’s approval rating had faltered upon the incumbent administration‘s scandal.

But key polls have been showing recently that the two frontrunners were still in a neck-and-neck race, with some runner-up candidates continuing to map their way into the list.

A survey by pollster Realmeter showed on Jan. 2 that in the last week of December, Ban held 23.5 percent of the respondents’ approval, beating Moon by 0.5 percentage points.

But another survey conducted by Korea Research, Yonhap News Agency and KBS showed Moon to be in the lead, with a 21.6 percent approval rating, 4.4 percentage points higher than Ban.

Experts pointed out that the stalemate in approval ratings, especially in that of Moon, was attributable to the public disappointment in politics.

“The people want change and have made this clear through the candlelight rallies and other protests,” said Realmeter Ceo Lee Taek-soo.

“But the conventional politicians have failed to live up to such expectations, which led to a stagnation in polls.”

By Bae Hyun-jung/The Korea Herald (tellme@heraldcorp.com)

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