Park’s ouster roils nation
Two die in violent clashes near court
SEOUL: South Korea’s Acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn called for stability and social order yesterday after the Constitutional Court ruled earlier in the day to permanently remove impeached President Park Geun-hye from office.
“All efforts need to be made in such a way that social order be maintained and management of state affairs be conducted in a stable manner, and to ease the people’s concerns and the concerns among the international community,” Mr Hwang said during a Cabinet meeting.
He also called for a maximum level of alert and readiness to cope with any provocations by North Korea.
Mr Hwang ordered the cabinet to speed up necessary work to prepare for a presidential election, which will have to be held in 60 days as a result of the court’s ruling. The court upheld parliament’s vote to impeach Ms Park, who is embroiled in an abuseof-power and corruption scandal involving her close friend and confidante. Meanwhile, the Royal Thai Embassy in Seoul asked Thai nationals in South Korea to avoid protest venues. The embassy’s hotline in Seoul is 010-67470095.
SEOUL: South Korea’s Constitutional Court removed impeached President Park Geunhye from office in a unanimous ruling yesterday over a corruption scandal that has plunged the country into political turmoil and worsened an already-serious national divide.
The decision capped a stunning fall for the country’s first female leader, who rode a wave of lingering conservative nostalgia for her late dictator father to victory in 2012, only to see her presidency crumble as millions of furious protesters filled the nation’s streets.
Two people died during protests that followed the ruling. Police and hospital officials said about 30 protesters and police officers were injured in the violent clashes near the court, which prompted Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, the country’s acting head of state, to plead for peace and urge Ms Park’s angry supporters to move on.
The ruling has stripped her of all the privileges she could have enjoyed as a former head of state, including the right to be buried alongside her late dictator father at a national cemetery.
The ruling also opens Ms Park up to possible criminal proceedings — prosecutors have already named her a criminal suspect — and makes her South Korea’s first democratically elected leader to be removed from office since democracy replaced dictatorship in the late 1980s.
It also deepens South Korea’s political and security uncertainty as the country faces existential threats from North Korea, reported economic retaliation from a China furious about Seoul’s cooperation with the US on an anti-missile system, and questions in Seoul about the new Trump administration’s commitment to the countries’ security alliance.
Ms Park’s “acts of violating the
constitution and law are a betrayal of the public trust”, acting Chief Justice Lee Jungmi said. “The benefits of protecting the constitution that can be earned by dismissing the defendant are overwhelmingly big. Hereupon, in a unanimous decision by the court panel, we issue a verdict: We dismiss the defendant, President Park Geun-hye.’’
Chief Justice Lee accused Ms Park of colluding with longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil to extort tens of millions of dollars from businesses and letting Ms Choi, a private citizen, meddle in state affairs and receive and look at documents with state secrets. Those allegations were previously made by prosecutors, but Ms Park has refused to undergo any questioning, citing a law that gives a sitting leader immunity from prosecution.
Ms Park didn’t vacate the presidential Blue House yesterday as her aides were preparing for her return to her private home
in southern Seoul, according to the Blue House. She wasn’t planning any statement yesterday, it said.
Ms Park’s lawyer, Seo Seok-gu, who had previously compared Ms Park’s impeachment to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, called the verdict a “tragic decision” made under popular pressure and questioned the fairness of what he called a “kangaroo court”.
South Korea must now hold an election within two months to choose Ms Park’s successor. Liberal Moon Jae-in, who lost to Ms Park in the 2012 election, currently enjoys a comfortable lead in opinion surveys. Pre-verdict surveys showed that 70 to 80% of South Koreans wanted the court to approve Ms Park’s impeachment. But there have been worries Ms Park’s ouster would further polarise the country and cause violence.
Sensing history, thousands of people — both pro-Park supporters, many of them dressed in army-style fatigues and wearing red berets, and those who wanted Ms Park gone — gathered around the Constitutional Court building and a huge public square in downtown Seoul.
A big television screen was set up near the court so people could watch the verdict live. Hundreds of police were on hand, wearing helmets with visors and black, hard-plastic breastplates and shin guards. The streets near the court were lined with police buses and barricades.
Some of Ms Park’s supporters reacted with anger after the ruling, shouting and hitting police officers and reporters with plastic flag poles and steel ladders, and climbing on police buses. Anti-Park protesters celebrated by marching in the streets near the presidential Blue House, carrying flags, signs and an effigy of Ms Park dressed in prison clothes and tied up with rope.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said two people died while protesting Ms Park’s removal. An official from the Seoul National University Hospital said that a man in his 70s, believed to be a Park supporter, died from head wounds after falling from the top of a police bus.
An official from the Kangbuk Samsung Hospital in Seoul said another man brought from the pro-Park rally died shortly after receiving CPR at the hospital. The hospital official couldn’t immediately confirm the cause of death.
In a televised speech, Mr Hwang said “there would be people who feel they cannot understand or accept [the court ruling], but it’s now time to move on and end all conflict and standoff”.