
The Democratic Party of Korea upped the pressure on Choi Sang-mok, South Korea’s second acting president in a month, to accept National Assembly motions to launch two special counsel investigations of suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol’s martial law bid and his wife Kim Keon Hee’s suspected stock price manipulation.
Choi has two days to decide whether to veto the motions passed by the Democratic Party, which holds well over half of the seats in the Assembly.
Rep. Park Sung-joon, who is part of the Democratic Party floor leadership, said during a radio interview Monday that a thorough investigation into how the martial law imposition came to be, and a swift Constitutional Court impeachment trial of Yoon “must go hand in hand.”
“I’m sure Acting President Choi understands the weight of these pressing tasks facing our country,” the lawmaker said.
While the Democratic Party has tamped down its impeachment talks as South Korea grapples with the country’s worst domestic aviation accident to date, hardliners within the party until recently said another impeachment is not off the table.
Rep. Kim Min-seok, heading the Democratic Party’s top decision-making council, said Friday as his party voted to impeach Han Duck-soo, the prime minister and the previous acting president, that Yoon’s “entire Cabinet deserves to be sacked.”
Urging Choi to cooperate with Yoon’s impeachment process, the head of the Democratic Party supreme council said the party would “impeach one after another” until there was an executive official who would follow the people's wishes.
Among the top 10 highest-ranking members of Yoon’s Cabinet, four have been replaced by acting ones. Two -- Han and Minister of Justice Park Sung-jae -- have been impeached through an Assembly vote. Kim Yong-hyun and Lee Sang-min resigned as ministers of defense and interior, respectively.
As the country struggles to contain economic and other fallout from the martial law debacle, going through with another impeachment is also a political gamble for the Democratic Party, whose leader Rep. Lee Jae-myung has his eyes set on the presidency.
Two-time Democratic Party Rep. Kim Yong-min, who is on the Assembly judiciary committee, called for “strategic patience” with Choi before proceeding to impeach him.
“There is room for us to exercise some ‘strategic patience’ with the new acting president, like we did with Prime Minister Han for about two weeks,” Kim told The Korea Herald on Monday.
Kim, credited as one of the lawmakers to craft the impeachment motion against Yoon, said the Democratic Party decided to impeach Han, seeing him as being complicit in Yoon’s short-lived martial law imposition.
“It’s a bit early to make that kind of assessment with Deputy Prime Minister Choi. We’ll see,” the lawmaker said.
Kim added that Choi wouldn't risk refusing Democratic Party moves, given “popular demand.” “This isn’t just political. This is what the people want,” he said.