South Korean lawmakers voted by a wide margin Friday to impeach South Korean President Park Geun-hye.
When news broke, the thousands of people gathered outside the Parliament building cheered, hugged, danced, blew air horns, and took selfies to celebrate the president’s impeachment, the New York Times reports.
The president’s approval rating stood at just five percent, a poll taken earlier in the day revealed. The motion to impeach Park passed 234 to 56, indicating that 60 members of Park’s ruling conservative Saenuri Party voted against her.
Park has been stripped of her presidential powers, and now she awaits the ruling of the Constitutional Court. The court will decide whether to remove her from office or reinstate her.
The president made her fourth apology Friday, however, she did not admit any wrongdoing. “I am gravely accepting the voice of the people and the National Assembly, and I sincerely hope that the confusion will come to a satisfactory end,” she said in a television broadcast.
The vote followed several weeks of scandalous revelations starting in October.
Park stands accused of colluding with close friend and confidante Choi Soon-sil and a few other suspected accomplices in a major influence-peddling scandal involving millions of dollars.
Choi was arrested and indicted for fraud and abuse of power in early November.
South Korean people have rallied in the capital on six separate occasion since Oct. 29. Around 12,000 protesters attended the first rally in late October, and an estimated 2.32 million protesters turned out for the last rally on Dec. 3.
Protesters attend a rally demanding the impeachment of South Korean President Park Geun-hye in front of the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, December 9, 2016. The sign reads “Impeach Park Geun-hye”. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
When Park’s impeachment was announced Friday, protesters waved banners and shouted, “Congratulations on the impeachment of Park Geun-hye! Now, let’s lock her up.”
“She should go to jail,” others said.
Park’s impeachment was heralded as a “victory for the people.” She was taken down with “people power,” one protester told reporters.
“It’s a victory of the people’s will and Korea’s democracy,” Seoul National University political science professor Kang Won-taek told the New York Times, “It is Korea’s glorious revolution, achieved without blood and without any serious violence.”
Park joins the ranks of her disgraced predecessors, as almost all of South Korea’s leaders have fallen in shame.
Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn will serve as the acting president in the meantime. If Park is removed from office by the Constitutional Court, South Korea will hold an election for a new president.
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