Lawmakers: South Korean leader to accept impeachment outcome

South Korean lawmakers have dispatched parliamentary security officers to order the jailed woman at the center of a scandal that threatens to bring down the president to attend a hearing.

South Korean President Park Geun-Hye bows during an address to the nation, at the presidential Blue House in Seoul last month.

A middle school student shouts slogans at a protest calling South Korean President Park Geun-hye to step down in Seoul, South Korea, November 19, 2016.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Ahead of an impeachment vote later this week, lawmakers took turns grilling a K-pop music director, a fashion designer and almost a dozen others said to be linked to a woman at the heart of a scandal that threatens to bring down the country’s president.

But the party whip explained to the president that growing public calls for her speedy resignation, as shown by continued large-scale public demonstrations, have left Saenuri with no choice but to abandon this plan and go along with the opposition-led impeachment motion coming up for a vote Friday. Last week, Park offered to step down and asked parliament to decide how and when she should resign, a move opposition parties rejected as a ploy to buy time and avoid impeachment.

They tried to have Mr Lee explain who at Samsung made decisions to sponsor the Choi family, but he evaded answering.

State prosecutors accuse Park of helping a close confidante extort money and favors from the country’s largest companies and manipulate state affairs.

The president is also entitled to propose the Bill exclusively without consent of the National Assembly, but chances are quite slim given the furious public sentiment towards her.

December 3: Opposition lawmakers formally launch an attempt to impeach Park, setting up a floor vote as early as Friday.

Supported by all 171 opposition and independent lawmakers, its adoption was made possible by an anti-Park faction within the president’s Saenuri party.

And now, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Park is “ready” to face an impeachment vote on Friday.

Park is accused of colluding with a friend and a former aide to pressure big business owners to pay into two foundations set up to back policy initiatives.

The impeachment motion is being proposed by 171 opposition lawmakers, but it needs at least 29 Saenuri lawmakers to reach the required two-thirds majority. Six of the nine judges on the court have to confirm the legislature’s action.

Park said if she was impeached she would wait for the court to review the decision, signalling the political crisis could drag on for months.

The president has been embroiled in a scandal involving her long-time friend, Choi Soon-sil, the daughter of “a shadowy religious cult leader“, Choi Tae-min, who was Park’s mentor until his death in 1994.

If the impeachment motion is passed through the unicameral assembly, President Park will immediately be stripped of all powers.

“I think anyone who comes after her will do a better job than Park Geun-hye”, Lee says.

Some observers contend that Park’s consent to the late-April proposal – and thus a specific time frame for resignation – will change the atmosphere within her party. Prosecutors named Park a co-conspirator in the alleged crimes but did not press charges because of her presidential immunity from a criminal indictment.

The presidential office, however, insists Park’s hairdo and makeup only took 20 minutes and that the two contract-based workers had entered the office at around 3.20pm that the day.