South Korea votes to impeach president

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South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol has been impeached by the National Assembly following his failed attempt to impose martial law last week.

Opposition parties, which command a majority in the legislature, only needed the support of eight out of 108 lawmakers from the president’s People Power party to secure the required two-thirds majority. The motion passed by a margin of 204-85.

Yoon had survived an impeachment motion last Saturday after lawmakers from his conservative PPP boycotted the vote. But the mood in the party started to shift against him on Thursday after a speech where he lashed out at critics and vowed to “fight to the end”.

While the official stance of the PPP was to oppose Yoon’s impeachment, leader Han Dong-hoon announced on Thursday that members should vote “based on their own conviction and conscience” during Saturday’s secret ballot.

Yoon’s impeachment must still be approved by South Korea’s Constitutional Court, which is supposed to deliver its verdict within 180 days of the parliamentary vote, but this time limit is not binding.

In the meantime, Yoon will be suspended from duties and constitutional authority will be passed to prime minister Han Duck-soo, a Yoon appointee and career technocrat, on an interim basis.

The last president to be successfully impeached was the conservative Park Geun-hye, who was removed in 2017 following a bribery and influence scandal that triggered large street demonstrations.

This is a developing story