Democratic Party pushes multiple impeachment bills

The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea on Tuesday motioned a set of bills to impeach a high-level Yoon Suk Yeol government official and four prosecutors who investigated cases affecting party figures, including former party Chair Rep. Lee Jae-myung.

The Democratic Party, which holds the majority of seats in the Assembly, put the impeachment bills to the floor without the ruling People Power Party’s support.

The series of impeachments pushed by the Democratic Party leads to impeaching Yoon himself, with several candidates running to serve in party leadership positions each vowing to remove the president from office.

Chung Bong-ju, who launched his bid to be on the party’s top decision-making body, the Supreme Council, told reporters on Tuesday that if elected, he would “end the Yoon presidency without fail.”

An online National Assembly petition posted June 20 calling for Yoon’s impeachment crashed the Assembly temporarily on Monday due to high traffic. It had over 900,000 signatures as of 4 p.m. Tuesday.

The current Democratic Party leadership, which will be replaced at the party convention slated for August, has rallied on these calls.

“Yoon must be careful not to repeat the tragedy of former President Park Geun-hye,” Rep. Jung Chung-rae said in remarks delivered at a party leadership meeting last May.

The four-time lawmaker said that the president refusing to accept the opposition's calls to appoint a special counsel to investigate the first lady was “anti-Constitutional.” “The people are not going to be convinced. The impeachment train is about to take off,” he said.

Yoon has responded to the Democratic Party's move to impeach yet another one of his top officials by approving his resignation offer on Tuesday.

Kim Hong-il, who headed the Korea Communications Commission until this morning, asked to step down before his impeachment could be put to vote at the Assembly.

Kim, who served as the chair of the commission in charge of licensing and regulation of broadcasting services, became the commission’s second chair to quit under Yoon.

His predecessor Lee Dong-kwan also resigned amid an impeachment push by the Democratic Party, for his allegedly unfair personnel decisions and appointments aimed at increasing government influence over broadcasters.

Also facing impeachment calls are four prosecutors responsible for investigating criminal allegations surrounding the former Democratic Party chair, Lee, and other liberal politicians.

The Democratic Party claims that the prosecutors manipulated evidence and facts with the aim of framing Lee as guilty. But in all of the four cases, courts had already found the indictments to be sufficient.

The People Power Party said the party would stage a series of filibusters to protest the impeachment bills.

“The Democratic Party is once again abusing its majority in the Assembly to defend Lee Jae-myung from his potential criminal liabilities,” Rep. Choo Kyung-ho, the ruling party floor leader, told reporters.

Lee, who recently resigned from his position as main opposition party chair in a step towards running a second time, was absent from the chaos that unfolded at the Assembly on this day to attend a trial over corruption allegations from his time as mayor of Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.

An official of the presidential office said on condition of anonymity that the Democratic Party’s attempt to propose a motion Tuesday to impeach four prosecutors who filed charges against former Chair Lee shows that the main opposition wants to decide how Lee gets investigated for his alleged crimes.

The four prosecutors have looked into Lee’s charges of his alleged involvement in a 490 billion-won ($352.8 million) land corruption scandal and in an unauthorized cash transfer to North Korea.

“The Democratic Party is asking for the investigative power, given that the party has been pushing for special counsel bills and a motion to impeach prosecutors who brought charges against Lee,” according to the presidential office official.

The official also said impeaching Yoon is currently “not possible” unless it is determined he has violated the law, when asked about the stance of the presidential office regarding the petition calling for Yoon’s impeachment on the Assembly’s website.

The official said that these political attacks against the ruling bloc in the form of impeachment motions have paralyzed the political arena, and blamed opposition parties for “obstructing the legislature” by seeking the impeachment of Yoon, a Cabinet member and the four prosecutors.