South Korean Parliament Voted for Impeachment of President Park Geun-hye - nsnbc international | nsnbc international - 0 views
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The South Korean parliament, on Friday, voted in favor of the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. The country’s Constitutional Court will have 180 days to decide whether it will uphold or reject the impeachment.
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The parliament passed the bill following more than six weeks of protests. The motion to impeach President Park received the necessary two-third approval from South Korea’s legislators. For the final approval, the impeachment motion is required to be upheld by the constitutional court. The constitutional court will have as long as 180 days to rule on it, and the two-thirds of the nine-judge court must endorse it to formally impeach the scandal-hit president 234 legislators voted in favor of the impeachment, 56 voted against, 2 abstained, and 2 votes were declared invalid. President Park Geun-hye will be stripped of her presidential powers immediately after receiving a written notice, about 3 – 4 hours after the vote. Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn is will temporarily assume presidential powers until the Constitutional Court has made a final decision after no more than 180 days. President Park Geun-hye has been accused of colluding with her close friend and confidente Choi Soon-sil who is at the center of a corruption scandal. On November 20, South Korea’s prosecutors charged Choi and two former officials of the presidential administration with corruption, extortion and abuse of powers.
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Choi was among others accused of forcing a number of companies to donate tens of millions of dollars to the foundations she controlled. Although this influence has not been proven, investigators believe the president was aware of these ‘donations.’ Earlier this week Park, who had made three public apologies, said she would calmly accept an impeachment. A dignified gesture against the backdrop of an increasingly hateful rhetoric from the political left that compared Park with her father, who has widely been denounced as “the last South Korean military dictator”.