SEOUL: South Korea’s ruling party on Thursday urged scandal-hit President Park Geun-Hye to step down in April next year, giving her a week to accept their ultimatum or risk impeachment.
Park this week said she would be willing to step down early after coming under huge pressure to quit over an influence peddling scandal that has drawn more than a million people onto the streets in protest.
The ruling Saenuri Party’s 128 lawmakers unanimously agreed to demand Park resign in late April and called for a presidential election to be held in June, six months earlier than scheduled.
“All the lawmakers of the party unanimously approved this timetable”, parliamentary floor leader Chung Jin-Suk was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency after a crucial party meeting.
The party considered the timetable the most appropriate to ensure a peaceful transfer of power, maintain stability and give political parties time to prepare for the presidential election, Chung said.
Lawmakers from Park’s own party had backed the opposition-led move to impeach her as early as this Friday.
But one of them, former Saenuri Party head Kim Moo-Sung, said they were now willing to give Park four months to leave office.
“If the president agrees to step down on April 30, there is no need to push through with impeachment”, Kim said.
The party would give Park until Thursday next week to accept their demand.
Hours after Park offered to step down, a fire destroyed a sprawling century-old market in her hometown, just blocks from where she was born.
On Thursday, Park made a brief and unexpected visit to the charred Seomun market in Daegu city, her first public appearance in over three weeks. The fire, seen by many as symbolic of the ruins of her political career, is still under investigation.
Shop-owners who gathered at the traditional market after Wednesday’s fire said they were badly hit economically, but also felt betrayed by Park, once proudly claimed as “a daughter of Daegu”.
The city of 2.5 million, 240 km southeast of Seoul, is also where her father, assassinated president Park Chung-Hee, went to school and was a stronghold of power for South Korea’s premier political family. The elder Park, seen as the builder of modern South Korea, took over after a coup in 1961 and ruled until he was shot and killed by his spy chief in 1979.
“Most of us are resentful of her. We wish she would decisively step down and we can have reform and this country would change,” said Park Kyung-Sook, 41, who ran a dumpling store for 20 years that was destroyed in the fire.
“This is Daegu. President Park Chung-Hee did such a great job, so we thought his legacy would be carried on and she would do well. The people of Daegu really believed in her,” said Park, who is not related to the family of two presidents.
Park Geun-Hye represented a district on the outskirts of Daegu for 12 years in parliament before she was elected president in 2012.
“We had believed in her,” said Ji Mi-jeong, 51, who has run a store at the market for 20 years. “Many people have turned against her. If we had 100 people who used to believe in her, 95 per cent of them have turned against her.”
Referring to the fire, Lee Dae-Ho, a 60-year-old labourer in Daegu, said: “Maybe it’s the curse of the Daegu people, timing wise, because she made that announcement (offering to step down).” — AFP/Reuters
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