South Korea’s president has offered to resign and has called on parliament to arrange her departure. South Korea’s president, Park Geun-hye, has offered to end her four-year presidency early, despite the fact that her position officially ends in early 2018.
Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s first female president has experienced a rather turbulent presidency after a scandal broke out and she was accused of cronyism and corruption. Recently, Park’s approval ratings dropped to 4 percent, an all-time low for a democratically elected South Korean president.
“I will leave to parliament everything about my future including shortening of my term,” Park said after the scandal errupted.
However, it is argued that Park’s offer is only being made to ensure that she doesn’t have to endure the humiliation of impeachment.
The scandal that has influenced Park to make her offer stems from her relationship with long-time friend, Choi Soon-Sil, who was accused of perpetrating political influence on South Korea’s president for her own personal gain. Choi Soon-Sil is reported to be the daughter of a religious cult leader. Choi has also been accused of attempting to extort large amounts of money from South Korean companies. Choi is also suspected of abusing her friendship with Park to request business donations for a non-profit fund that she obtained. The South Korean president has been accused of allegedly passing multiple numbers of confidential government documents to Choi, via an assistant. Since the accusations, Choi was investigated, then detained and she has now been found guilty, resulting in her arrest for fraud and abuse of power.
If parliament decides to allow a pass for Park’s impeachment on Friday, she will be immediately suspended from any presidential duties. Therefore, the prime minister will have to temporarily take over as head of the government. The process for impeachment can take up to six months as the Constitutional Court would have to submit approval.
Since the scandal, the public has expressed its outrage, taking to the streets of Seoul and other cities as thousands have protested against the president for five consecutive weekends.
