Korea prepares for likely presidential impeachment vote

November 20: In indicting Choi and Park’s two former aides, state prosecutors say they believe the president was “collusively involved” in criminal activities by the suspects, who allegedly bullied companies into giving tens of millions of dollars to foundations and businesses Choi controlled, and enabled Choi to interfere with state affairs.

“Regardless of the opinions in favor or against the impeachment, the public is watching with deep hearts”, said National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun after the vote.

People rally against President Park Geun-hye in front of the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul on Thursday. The comments suggest Park is now bracing for a Constitutional Court procedure that would determine her fate, according to South Korean media reports.

She said she let her guard down with a trusted family friend, but the public is not buying it and for last six weeks they have come out in their millions on the streets demanding her resignation. The 9-member Constitutional Court is considered conservative in its makeup but some of its former judges have said the case against Park is strong and was likely to be approved.

The session was televised live and millions watched in astonishment as some of the country’s wealthiest and most powerful men were publicly hauled over the coals and accused of shoddy business practices.

Police barricaded the building with buses from 8 p.m.to keep the demonstrators out.

As recently as the beginning of this week, analysts had said the pro-impeachment forces might be scratching to get to 200, but revelations over the past two days have further hurt Park.

As President, Park is now immune from prosecution.

Park’s inexplicable absence in the hours after the tragedy was listed in the motion to impeach her, and it is hard to overestimate the trauma that Sewol has left in Korean society.

In July this year, Hwang was pelted with eggs and water bottles during a visit to a rural town over a decision to deploy an advanced USA missile defense system in the area to better cope with North Korean threats.

Most damning was a report by the left-leaning Hankyoreh newspaper that Ms. Park was getting her hair done on the day that the Sewol ferry sank in April 2014, claiming more than 300 lives, a lot of them high school students.

She is suspended, with duties transferred to Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, while the Constitutional Court decides whether to remove her from office. She faces an impeachment vote Friday. If all 165 lawmakers surrender their seats, the 128 Saenuri Party members are not enough to maintain the legislature.

Besides South Korean President Park Geun-hye, the biggest casualty of the country’s mushrooming political corruption scandal may be the presidential aspirations of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

For last two days, that has been on display at the National Assembly.

Now that the parliament has voted to impeach, the reins will be handed over to Prime Minister Hwang. Her three most trusted aides have been fired over the corruption and influence-peddling scandal that now threatens to undo her presidency.

Ahead of a vote to impeach South Korean President Park Geun-hye, opposition members of parliament sat on the floor and chanted “Impeach” with raised fists.

Analysts say opposition parliamentarians plus dissenters within her Saenuri Party seem to have amassed a sufficient number of votes to reach a two-thirds majority for impeachment in the 300-seat parliament.