South Korean MPs vote to impeach president Park Guen-Hye

The national assembly vote immediately transferred Park’s authority to the prime minister, pending a decision by the constitutional court on whether to ratify the decision and permanently remove the president from office.

South Korean president Park Geun-Hye attends an emergency cabinet meeting at the presidential office on December 9, 2016 in Seoul. South Korean Presidential Blue House via Getty Images

SEOUL // South Korean MPs voted to impeach president Park Geun-Hye on Friday, stripping away her sweeping executive powers over a corruption scandal and opening a new period of national uncertainty.

The national assembly vote immediately transferred Ms Park’s authority to the prime minister, pending a decision by the constitutional court on whether to ratify the decision and permanently remove the president from office.

A ruling could take up to six months, during which time Ms Park, 64, will keep the title of “president” and continue to receive all of the perks that come with the position. She will keep living at the presidential Blue House, using her official car and plane, collecting the same monthly salary – reportedly about US$15,000 (Dh55,096) – and receiving round-the-clock security.

But with nothing officially to do, it’s uncertain how she’ll spend her days.

In 2004, when liberal president Roh Moo-Hyun was impeached by MPs after being accused of minor election law violations and incompetence, he spent his time at the Blue House reading books and newspapers and mountain-climbing with journalists, according to South Korean media.

The constitutional court restored Mr Roh’s powers about two months later, however, ruling that his wrongdoings weren’t serious enough to justify his unseating.

The chances of the court reinstating Ms Park, however, are considered low because the charges against her – constitutional and criminal violations ranging from a failure to protect people’s lives to bribery and abuse of power – are much graver.

South Koreans, meanwhile, are left facing an extended stretch of political anxiety and policy paralysis at a time of slowing economic growth, rising unemployment and elevated military tensions with nuclear-armed North Korea.

“I’d like to say that I’m deeply sorry to the people because the nation has to experience this turmoil because of my negligence and lack of virtue at a time when our security and economy both face difficulties,” Ms Park said after the vote, before a closed-door meeting with her cabinet where she and other aides reportedly broke down in tears.

The result means prime minister Hwang Kyo-Ahn, a former prosecutor who has never held elected office, suddenly finds himself in charge of Asia’s fourth largest economy and supreme commander of its armed forces.

In a televised address just hours after the vote, Mr Hwang, 59, stressed that the country was primed to respond to any North Korean provocation.

“The government will maintain a watertight national defence posture,” Mr Hwang said, pledging to keep the country safe and prosperous.

“We will stabilise the financial and currency markets and make efforts to maintain South Korea’s sovereign ratings,” he added.

But Mr Hwang comes with his own baggage. Seen by critics as a stiff and uncompromising defender of Ms Park, last month he suggested that he was to blame for the scandal raging around the president because he had failed to support her properly.

The motion to impeach Ms Park was adopted by 234 votes to 56, easily securing the required two-thirds majority in the 300-seat chamber. The vote stripped the president of her powers as commander-in-chief of South Korea’s 630,000-member military, and her ability to appoint officials, sign treaties with foreign countries and carry out special pardons of inmates. She also cannot preside over meetings of presidential secretaries.

News of the vote triggered wild celebrations among hundreds of anti-Park activists gathered outside the national assembly.

“This is a great moment,” said a beaming Kim Jun-Hweh, 21. “This is what we wanted, and we want her kicked out of the Blue House now.”

MPs from both main parties faced huge pressure to act against Ms Park, the daughter of a military dictator still revered by many conservatives for lifting the country out of poverty in the 1960s and 1970s.

Her approval ratings had plunged to 4 per cent, the lowest among South Korean leaders since democracy arrived in the late 1980s, and even elderly conservatives who once made up her political base have distanced themselves from her. An opinion survey released earlier on Friday showed 81 per cent of respondents supported Ms Park’s impeachment.

The push for impeachment was driven by massive protests that saw millions take to the streets of Seoul and other cities in recent weeks, demanding Ms Park’s ouster.

“This has been an honourable civil revolution in which our people defeated an incompetent leader,” the president of the main opposition Democratic Party said after the vote.

The scandal that felled Ms Park focused on her friendship with long-time confidante Choi Soon-Sil.

Ms Choi is awaiting trial on charges of meddling in state affairs and using her Blue House connections to force dozens of conglomerates to donate around US$70 million to two foundations she controlled.

In a first for a sitting South Korean president, Ms Park has been named a “suspect” by prosecutors investigating the case.

It has been a startling fall from grace for a politician who had run for the Blue House as an incorruptible candidate, declaring herself beholden to nobody and “married to the nation”.

But the latest scandal around Ms Park comes after years of frustration from opponents over a leadership style that inspired comparisons to her father, Park Chung-Hee. Critics saw in Ms Park an unwillingness to tolerate dissent as her government cracked down on press freedom, pushed to dissolve a leftist party and allowed aggressive police suppression of anti-government protests, which saw the death of an activist in 2016.

She also was heavily criticised over her government’s handling of a 2014 ferry sinking that killed more than 300 people, most of them schoolchildren.

* Agence France-Presse, Associated Press