South Korean President Park Geun-hye hasn’t had a good year.
Despite her best efforts (or maybe because of them), the conservative, market-oriented Park in now facing impeachment by the South Korean National Assembly, and the prospects for her — and her country — are not pretty.
Even her own ruling party, the Saenuri (New Frontier), has turned on her, with 40 of its assembly members having stated that they will vote against her.
Her ouster could come as early as next week.
At wit’s end to find a way out of the growing corruption scandal that has dogged her almost since the start of the year, Park gave a televised apology earlier this week (her third in two months), and even offered to cut short her term in exchange for not being impeached.
“If the governing and opposition parties inform me of the way to minimize the confusion and vacuum in state affairs and ensure a stable transfer of power, I will step down as president according to their schedule and legal procedures,” she offered.
But the National Assembly would hear nothing of it.
They want blood and they want it now.
And they want a full-fledged admission of guilt, which was not forthcoming in her Tuesday, Nov. 29, five-minute address to the nation.
It’s not just the National Assembly that wants her exit.
There have been increasingly large protest rallies in the streets of Seoul and other major South Korean cities demanding her departure.
A recent Gallup Korea poll put her popularity rating at 4 percent, with her approval rating among 20- and 30-year olds at a startling 0 percent.
Park’s five-year term is due to expire in February 2018, but, barring any political miracles, chances are she won’t make it to that date.
The ain’t-goin’-nowhere scandal, that has engulfed the 64-year-old Park, involves the secretive dealings of her longtime friend and consultant Choi Soon-sil, who allegedly extorted millions of dollars from South Korean businesses in a pay-to-play scheme reminiscent of Raúl Salinas (brother of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who earned himself the nickname Mr. 10 Percent because of his backdoor payolas).
So far, Park has been unable to disassociate herself from the allegations against Choi (who has been indicted on charges of coercion, fraud and abuse of power), and most South Koreans interpret that as evidence of the president’s guilt.
Park’s excuse?
“I didn’t know it was illegal. No one told me I couldn’t do that.”
Not exactly a gracious mea culpa.
Park later insisted that she did not profit from Choi’s purported influence-peddling and that the real culprit was her former BFF. (In most circles, that’s called passing the buck.)
No doubt, a prolonged impeachment hearing would thrust South Korea and its already wobbling economy into a period of political instability, with the ever-unpopular Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn serving as the country’s acting president with the Constitutional Court spending up to six months deciding whether to ratify the National Assembly vote.
At this point, the best option for Park and her country would be for her to fall on her sword and choose an honorable way out of the mess she made for herself (i.e., resigning immediately), rather than continuing to come up with new ploys to delay the inevitable.
Thérèse Margolis can be reached at [email protected].
