President Roh Moo-hyun was impeached on Friday. The event was pretty dramatic, apparently - opposition party members were arrested and dragged, kicking and screaming from the chambers, and one man tried to drive his car into the parliament and, when that didn’t work, he set it on fire.
I don’t pretend to understand South Korean politics at all, but I’m curious as to what this means for South Korea and the Korean peninsula in full. Will this political instability be looked at as a possible opportunity for invasion by the North? Or is this just internal political wrangling? Should President Roh have been impeached, or is this an attempted coup, as his supporters say?
(Note: I opened this thread in Great Debates because I figure there’s more than one opinion on this issue.)
As I understand it, he endorsed a political party in the upcoming elections, which he wasn’t supposed to do. Then at a news conference where he was expected to apologize, he said he hadn’t done anything wrong, at which point the impeachment process moved forward. Please correct me if I’ve gotten any of this wrong. Can someone explain how the endorsement of a party is an impeachment-worthy offense?
Define “Coup.” He has done some sketchy things. Do they rise to the level of impeachment? YMMV, but it will have no real impact on the strategic situation. He was pro-closer ties with NK, but it’s very relative.
It’s illegal under their constitution for the President to officially endorse canidates for the legisture. The idea is to keep him above the fray, as it were.
Part of the backdrop to this is that in Asia, politics is much, much less party-centric. It’s not uncommon of for a pol to switch parties, or even to stay in a party and endorse someone in another party (though often only implicity), and voters will follow.
Roh was elected as president by the second-biggest party (MDP), but was now openly endorsing candidates of the third-biggest (Uri), greatly pissing off the MDP who elected him. The real problem was that it he was already opposed by the biggest party in the legislature, the GDP. Imagine Kerry, after winning the election, endorsing Greens running against Democrats.
Large numbers of two parties against him = impeachment. He’s not really a career politician, and IMO he got very cocky and will pay for it.
Nitpick: The MDP didn’t “elect” him; the people did. But Roh was the MDP candidate.
He got impeached basically because he went against the law - but even then it is debatable whether he really flouted the law - perhaps in the spirit of it. But Roh has been mired in the usual politicking that plague so many countries, inside and outside of Asia, and his tenure hasn’t seen much reforming which people expected him, as an outsider, to bring about. Ties with N Korea has also stagnated. Lack of tangible domestic/foreign achievements = plenty of fodder for political opponents.
The North won’t bother too much about it. It won’t dare to invade, not when China and US are involved in the whole process. But perhaps talks will stall. We can’t tell for now. Right now they have decided to suspend his powers, but the Constitutional Court will have to review whether he should be removed from office. If he isn’t, then he’ll stay on. If he does, it’ll be another matter entirely.