A South Korean court is expected to announce the fate of impeached President Park Geun-hye this Friday. Will she be removed from office?
The public corruption scandal that has rocked South Korea’s democracy in recent months got a step closer to resolution on Wednesday as a court confirmed its plans to announce the fate of the country’s impeached president later this week.
The decision on whether to remove suspended President Park Geun-hye from office amid bribery allegations involving the country’s top conglomerate, Samsung Group , is expected Friday morning.
“It’s definitely an exciting time,” said Joung Hwang, a professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Law School who has followed the case closely. “When the announcement will be made on live TV, I think virtually every Korean will be glued to the screen. It’s highly anticipated.”
The process to determine Park’s future began not long after the National Assembly, prompted in part by public outcry over the president’s decisions, impeached the embattled leader in December.
Park, 65, South Korea’s first female president, has been in power since 2013 — a tenure marked by controversy and what her critics say was ineffectual leadership and an autocratic style. Park has repeatedly apologized to the public and said she never acted outside the country’s national interest.
“I apologize for hurting the people’s hearts with my carelessness in supervising my associates,” she wrote in a statement last month to the court weighing whether to remove her from office.
The allegations against her and others atop the nation’s government and corporate systems have prompted widespread anger among the South Korean public. That’s led to massive but peaceful street rallies in recent months reminiscent of protests that led to the country’s democratization in the 1980s.
Millions of South Koreans — including families toting their young children — have attended the rallies across the country, calling for Park’s ouster. The rallies in Seoul have been the largest, with some stretching more than a mile.
Park was elected in 2012 and her downfall was swift after revelations last fall that a longtime confidant with no government title, Choi Soon-sil, gained access to sensitive government documents, including the president’s speeches.
For months the judges on the nation’s constitutional court, which has final jurisdiction in impeachment cases, have held public hearings to weigh the myriad allegations in the impeachment case — both political and criminal.
Park’s removal, which opinion surveys show the public supports, would prompt a new presidential election within two months. The country’s prime minister, Hwang Kyo-ahn, would remain, as he is now, the interim president.
If the judges were to reject the impeachment, a regular election is scheduled to replace the term-limited Park in December, and she could remain in office until February of 2018.
