South Korea impeaches President Park Geun-hye

October 30: Choi returns to South Korea from Germany. National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun announced that voting will take place today.

The impeachment will go through if at least two-thirds of the assembly vote in favour of it.

The court would have up to 180 days to decide. Park says she will accept a direct investigation into her actions.

Friday’s reshuffle will be Park’s last if the Constitutional Court makes a decision to formally end her presidency.

According to reports, there may be enough Saenuri dissenters who would vote for it. Park said this week that she would accept the vote’s outcome.

The Constitutional Court will hear arguments from the two sides – the chair of parliament’s Judiciary Committee for the impeachment motion and lawyers representing Park – in open hearings before delivering its ruling.

“Now I feel good”, said Choi, holding a red rose wrapped in a yellow ribbon, a symbol of the protests against Park.

High-level corruption has always been a stain on South Korea’s democratic credentials and the presidential Blue House is no stranger to allegations of cronyism.

Last Saturday, the 300-seat assembly put forward the motion as Park’s third address to the nation over her scandal enraged South Koreans further for the absence of her honest apology to wrongdoings.

The passage to impeachment has been a fitful one, and to a large extent driven by massive protests that have seen millions take to the streets of Seoul and other cities in recent weeks, demanding political parties remove Park if she refuses to step down.

The court could dismiss the impeachment move.

With revelations linking the executive office to the chaebol, South Korean voters have decried the ties that once underpinned the nation’s rapid growth. In particular, regardless of whether the impeachment motion passes, Japan’s Jiji Press forecasts a prolonged period of political chaos in Korea.

Even before the Choi scandal, however, complaints about her “imperial” leadership style, ineffectiveness in curbing North Korean provocations, attacks on free speech and dissenters, and government mismanagement of rescue operations after a deadly ferry sinking blamed in part on corruption and incompetence had dinged those hopes.

Ms Park’s authority now passes to the prime minister.

Local media are reporting an 80 per cent chance of the motion being granted. That is because of the president, Park.

In the interim period, the country’s prime minister acts as president. The signs read “Impeach Park Geun-hye immediately!”.

South Korea’s opposition-controlled parliament on Friday passed a motion to impeach President Park Geun Hye for her alleged role in an influence-peddling scandal centering on her confidante and aides.

Park has said that she will end her term early if it is the will of the National Assembly and the Constitutional Court, but that could be a lengthy process. In 2004, late President Roh Moo-hyun was also forced out of office for 2 months. Success is widely expected amid a corruption scandal that has left her isolated and loathed.

The opposition also staged a candlelight rally in and around the National Assembly that evening, with several of its potential contenders in next year’s presidential election participating, and steeled its commitment to an impeachment vote with late-night general lawmakers’ meetings and all-night protests at the National Assembly.

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.