South Korean president impeachment tarnishes family legacy
SEOUL, South Korea—Park Geun-hye could always rely on one unwavering gift throughout a political career that saw a triumphant return as South Korea’s first female president to the palatial Blue House where she’d lived as a girl: She enjoyed the reflected devotion, some might say worship, that half the coauntry felt for her late dictator father.
In the end—isolated, mocked and loathed by millions of protesters who swarmed the streets around her presidential fortress on the side of a sacred granite mountain—even the conservative adulation that had been her political bedrock failed to save her.
Parliament impeached Park and stripped her of all power Friday amid fury over prosecution claims that she had handed over extraordinary power to a corrupt friend. Her prime minister takes over while the nation’s Constitutional Court reviews whether to accept the lawmakers’ vote and drive her permanently from office.
Park could still wriggle out of the noose if the court goes against the overwhelming sentiment most of the country seems to share and restores her presidency. But her dream of extending the legacy of her father, Park Chung-hee, is ruined.
It is hard to imagine a more absolute fall for a woman who conservatives had long cherished as the self-sacrificing “Daughter of the Nation,” a woman who survived a knife attack a decade ago on the campaign trail that left her face slashed, and who rose above widespread sexism to build a political juggernaut.
Her supporters admired the student who put aside girlish dreams to serve as first lady after her mother was assassinated in 1974; the leader who shunned her brother and sister to avoid the corruption that had brought down so many others; the spinster who shut down any semblance of romantic love to devote herself entirely to public service.
None of it, though, was enough to efface the public anger and shame that has flooded over her as the details of a remarkable scandal emerged.
The speed of the collapse has been as remarkable as it has been comprehensive.
It was only a month and a half ago that Park made a surprise apology to the nation and acknowledged that she had relied on an old friend to help edit speeches and conduct unspecified “public relations.”
As the weeks wore on and the crowds grew at Saturday rallies staged within screaming distance of the Blue House, prosecutors built a more sinister case against her, one that shocked a country.
Park was accused of allowing the daughter of a cult leader, Choi Soon-sil, a close friend long mired in corruption scandals, to extort companies and play an extraordinary role in government affairs, even though she had no official position.