Former South Korean president’s advisers offer to resign after her ouster

Hwang spoke following clashes with police that broke out outside the nation’s highest court after a panel of judges voted unanimously to uphold a legislative impeachment of Park.

Demonstrators gather in Seoul on Saturday night for a candlelight rally to celebrate former president Park Geun-hye’s ouster.

Outside South Korea’s Constitutional Court on Friday morning, thousands of South Koreans crammed onto the street to await the ruling.

So, think of Ms Park in the presidential palace on her last night, alone with her past. The upheaval has left Moon Jae-in of the opposition Democratic Party as the frontrunner in the polls. “Ms. Park showed an attitude to honor points in the deal”, one of them said. It would not be happy with the current deployment of U.S. anti-missile batteries on South Korean soil.

Millions demonstrated every weekend on the streets calling for her to step down.

Park has consistently denied any wrongdoing but apologised for her “lack of discretion and carelessness”. As Park is no longer president, she is vulnerable to prosecution for bribery, extortion, and abuse of power.

The court said she broke the law by allowing Choi to meddle in state affairs, and breached guidelines on official secrets by leaking numerous documents.

“While not only Lotte but all other Korean companies are suffering from canceled business meetings and contracts, Korea has little choice but to wait until (US President) Trump and (China President) Xi Jinping come up with a deal over the issue, during their summit possibly in April”, he said. On the other were citizens tired by the past decade of hard-right rule.

It is not clear if she has simply defied the authorities by telling them she is not moving out until she is ready to do so – something her opponents say would be characteristically arrogant.

The statement was read out by her former spokesman Min Kyung Wook after she arrived at her private residence in the upscale Gangnam district in southern Seoul. “Though it will take time, I believe the truth will be definitely unearthed”. “This should unite the nation, but I’m anxious that we’re getting off to a chaotic start”. “That is the basis of her removal”.

At the Friday press conference, Suga only said, “We will make a decision [about returning the ambassador] after judging various situations in a comprehensive manner”.

“Our country has a winner-takes-it-all representative system where those who win an election, even by just one vote, obtain imperial political power and those who don’t get swept to the side and are neglected”, Ahn wrote.

The likely victor – by a distance – is the liberal former Democratic Party leader Moon Jae-In who enjoys 36 percent popular support. The election will come at a hard moment, not only for the Korean peninsula but also for East Asia and, indeed, the entire world. “We support THAAD deployment because right now North Korea and China are pointing their missiles at us”.

He was narrowly beaten by Park, a conservative, in 2012. (This stance has invited allegations of Communist ties.) His profile and platform resemble that of the left-wing President he once worked for: Roh Moo-hyun. “There is no reason for the president to be impeached”.

All of this history resonates now.

Ahn said the president simply has too much power over the appointment of government officials, making of laws and policies, budget planning and other decisions, which lawmakers find hard to check for most of the single five-year term. “It’s a continuation of the democracy demands of the nineteen-eighties. We compare it to a flower coming into bloom”.