South Korea’s political crisis is deepening after suspended president Yoon Suk Yeol again failed to obey a weekend summons to answer questions about his martial law decree on December 3rd.
Mr Yoon’s third snub of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, the body examining the botched declaration, means the authorities could be forced to issue a warrant for his arrest this week.
Mass protests demanding Mr Yoon leave office continue to grow in size. An estimated half a million people crowded central Seoul on Saturday waving K-pop light-sticks and chanting slogans demanding his imprisonment.
Polls suggest that most South Koreans, especially the young, support his removal from office but he remains popular with an older, conservative male demographic.
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South Korea’s parliament passed an impeachment vote against Mr Yoon on December 14th after a dozen members of his conservative People Power Party (PPP) broke ranks and sided with the opposition.
Presidential authority passed to prime minister Han Duck-soo while Mr Yoon fought charges that he abused his power. But in another twist of an already dramatic run of events, Mr Han was himself impeached on Friday.
Opposition lawmakers say instead of steering a course through the country’s worst constitutional crisis in decades, Mr Han is stalling Mr Yoon’s impeachment by blocking the appointment of three judges to the country’s nine-member Constitutional Court.
Mr Han’s political fate was decided amid chaotic scenes in parliament as PPP lawmakers angrily protested a decision by the National Assembly speaker to reduce the number of votes needed to pass the impeachment Bill.
The Constitutional Court must now confirm the removal of both the suspended and acting presidents, the prelude to possible criminal charges. Finance minister Choi Sang-mok, who is also deputy prime minister, replaces Mr Han in the interim.
Mr Han who is also a member of the PPP, took some of the tension out of the crisis on Friday when he promised “not to add to the chaos” by fighting the impeachment decision.
“I respect the decision of the National Assembly,” he said, adding the he would “wait for the Constitutional Court’s decision”.
The political turmoil has alarmed Seoul’s political allies and roiled its markets. On Friday, the Korean won tumbled to its lowest level in 16 years as investors switched to the yen and the dollar.
The country has also suffered a major plane crash after most of a flight’s passengers and crew died when the aircraft attempted to land at South Korea’s Muan International Airport on Sunday.
The twin-engine Boeing 737-800, carrying 175 passengers and six crew, was arriving from Bangkok when it skidded down the runway, crashed into a wall and exploded.
Mr Choi visited the airport on Sunday and said his government would oversee the response to the crash and investigate its cause.
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