SKorean president to ‘calmly’ accept impeachment outcome

Park faces a pivotal week, with an effort to impeach her gaining support from within her party.

A resignation offer may be too late to halt momentum for her impeachment. A vote on impeachment could come as early as this week.

The national assembly is slated to vote on the impeachment motion on Friday, with the backing of around 30 Saenuri Party MPs needed to reach the required two-thirds majority.

“I have always thought I would accept” the suggestion to resign in April, Chung quoted Park as saying.

During the parliamentary hearing, which was broadcast live, lawmakers questioned tycoons of the conglomerates about whether Park’s office strongarmed them to make the donations. “The only solution to normalize the government situation according to Constitutional procedures is for us to focus all our energies on impeachment and impeachment alone”, said Minjoo Party leader Choo Mi-ae at a talk with reporters to mark her 100th day in that position.

Additional precautionary measures are said to have been taken in preparation for the testimony of Hyundai’s Chung, who reportedly underwent a heart surgery several years ago.

The presidential office, however, insists Park’s hairdo and makeup only took 20 minutes and that the two contract-based workers had entered the office at around 3.20pm that the day. The court has up to 180 days to decide. “I thought the stance was made for the stability of the country, and I have chose to accept it since then”, she was quoted as saying.

Park’s primary foreign policy overture was an extended charm offensive to the Chinese leadership in an attempt to persuade President Xi Jinping to cooperate more fully with Seoul on pressuring North Korea over its nuclear program.

The party now has no chosen contender for presidential candidate and has been severely wounded by the corruption scandal involving the disgraced president giving behind-the-scenes power to a longtime friend and her associates. “We will fulfill the people’s will by impeaching her”. More than 170 opposition and independent politicians endorsed the motion filed last week.

Other witnesses included Cha Eun-taek, a music video director who has been charged with using his ties with Choi to win key culture-related projects from government agencies, and Ko Young-tae, who ran a company that made bags and clothes that Park used during overseas trips at the introduction of Choi. Billionaire Paul Elliott Singer, who leads Elliott, had also pushed for Samsung to list shares on a USA exchange, although the company said that it would consider a Nasdaq listing only after it makes decision on the holding company.

Lee Jae-yong, 48-year-old vice chairman of Samsung Electronics and the only son of the ailing chairman, was questioned by legislators on a range of issues from why the family of president Park Geun-hye’s confidante was sponsored by the company, to the company’s treatment of ailing workers.

But in reality her powers will be suspended the moment the impeachment vote passes and handed over to the caretaker prime minister. But most striking has been the turning away of her longstanding fans and voter base: conservatives in their 50s and 60s, nostalgic for Park, who credit him with having made South Korea prosper. The scale of these allegations is the most evident explanation for the popular outrage over the scandal, which touches on sensitive themes in South Korea, including the fiddling of highly competitive university admissions (for Ms Choi’s daughter); the power of cults; and the collusion of elites in business and government.

He also recalled Park pushing for donations during a meeting in July, but said there was no mention of specific foundations.