The boycott of almost all parliamentarians of the ruling People’s Power Party (PPP) has made it extremely difficult for the motion to remove South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, voted this Saturday in the National Assembly of this country, to succeed.
The parliamentary initiative to disqualify Yoon began voting after 6:00 p.m. local time today (9:00 GMT) after all but two of the PPP deputies left the chamber, so if even these voted in favor, the motion would fail.
For the dismissal motion to succeed, the support of two-thirds of the chamber is required, which means that the opposition bloc (which has a clear parliamentary majority with 192 seats) would need to have at least eight additional votes among the 108 with the told by the ruling People’s Power Party.
The vote on this motion in the Assembly took place after another proposal to establish an investigation into the first lady, Kim Keon-hee, for alleged corruption, which did not go ahead with a result of 198 votes in favor and 102 against, which already pointed to the failure of the initiative to remove Yoon.
This result reflected that only six members of the PPP had broken the voting discipline established by the conservative formation, which agreed this Saturday to reject the motion against Yoon, after having made several vacillations in previous days regarding the matter.
The main opposition party, the Democratic Party (PD), and the other five political forces presented a motion to remove Yoon last Wednesday, after the president unexpectedly decreed martial law on Tuesday night, accusing the opposition of ” anti-state activities” and being “pro-North Korean forces.
The state of emergency was lifted after the opposition parties and some of the PPP itself voted in the National Assembly to revoke that measure just a few hours after it was decreed, and despite the attempts of the police and South Korean troops to block access to parliament and take control of the chamber.
While the parliamentary vote was taking place today, some 149,000 people, according to police data, gathered in front of the Assembly to demand that Yoon resign from office or be dismissed.
