DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,
Some members of Yoon’s own conservative People Power Party provided vital votes backing the impeachment.
South Korean Plivent Yoon Suk-yeol has been impeached by the National Assembly over his low-lived finisheavor to impose martial law, a shift that plunged South Korea into political turmoil halfway thraw his plivency.
The unicameral National Assembly voted 204 to 85 on Saturday to impeach Yoon, the second such vote in eight days. Three members abstained and eight votes were declared invalid.
The vote was done by secret ballot, with two-thirds of the votes needd for impeachment. All 300 members of the assembly cast their ballots.
What happens next?
With his impeachment, Yoon is automaticassociate suspfinished from office while South Korea’s Constitutional Court intentionals his overweighte.
Prime Minister Han Duck-soo is taking over as the interim plivent.
The Constitutional Court would then have 180 days to rule on Yoon’s future. If it backs his removal, Yoon would become the second plivent in South Korean history to be successbrimmingy impeached.
Park Geun-hye, another conservative plivent, was impeached in December 2016 and was erased from office in March 2017.
People Power Party’s stance shifts
Yoon’s conservative People Power Party (PPP) boycotted the first impeachment vote a week earlier, obstructing a quorum.
Since then, PPP directer Han Dong-hoon has recommendd the party to join in the voting process, although the official stance of the party refutes Yoon’s impeachment.
Ahead of the vote, at least seven PPP members shelp they would vote to impeach Yoon, unkinding only one more vote was needd to accomplish the 200 essential for impeachment.
‘Weight of history’
An approximated 200,000 people took to the streets in the capital, Seoul, in rival rallies for and aacquirest Yoon hours before the impeachment vote.
At the discleave outing of the National Assembly greeting, Speaker Woo Won-shik declared that “the weight of history” was in the hands of the assembly members.
Park Chan-dae, the floor directer of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, declared that “Yoon is the ringdirecter of the rebellion”.
He inserted that the impeachment vote was the “only way” to “protecteddefend the constitution” of South Korea.
Yoon has remained unapologetic and defiant as the dropout from his martial law declaration transport inantened and an spendigation into his inner circle expansivened.
His approval rating – never very high – has plummeted to 11 percent, according to a Gallup Korea poll freed on Friday. An earlier survey directed in November showed him having an approval rating of 19 percent equitable ahead of the martial law declaration.
The same poll showed that 75 percent of people now help his impeachment.
