Impeached!

The president of Korea was impeached last Friday. To those of you reading this who are outside of Korea that may mean very little. It may mean very little even if you are inside Korea. The fact I was working in a newsroom here when it happened made it a lot more exciting for me. Since my job was to make sure the Koreans described it in grammatically correct English, I acquired more than a passing interest.

President Roh Moo-hyun was elected just over a year ago, largely based on his promises to clean up Korea's notoriously corrupt political landscape. He didn't have much experience as a politician, I was especially rankled at the fact he'd never been outside the country, and he proceeded to stumble along at about the expected pace. As the year wore on it turned out that his campaign had been taking money too. He promised to resign if it was discovered he took over 10 percent as much illegal cash as anyone else. An independent investigation revealed that he in fact took almost 15 percent as someone else. He must not have had his integrity in mind when he responded that his own personal calculations arrived at a lower figure.

He seemed to handle a number of things badly, and perhaps most importantly, he had a very acrimonious split with the party he was a member of when he was elected. To make a long story short, he had a number of Korean politicians looking to put a knife into his back.

A few weeks ago President Roh announced at a press conference that he would do everything possible to help his new party, the Uri Party, win seats in the upcoming National Assembly elections. Because of Korea's decidedly undemocratic history, the constitution contains special provisions forbidding public officials from endorsing political parties during elections. A special committee - driven by members of the opposition parties Roh so pissed off - decided that he had violated this law, and members of the National Assembly took the opportunity to draw up a motion to impeach him.

The only hitch was that by law the motion had to be voted upon by the National Assembly within 72 hours of its creation. The members of the assembly who supported Roh decided the best way to thwart it was by literally camping in front of the speaker's podium in the assembly hall. They sat there for a couple days, threatening to not move.

I asked some Koreans what was going to happen. Was the opposition going to go down there and say "Move," followed by a quick reply of "Make me," at which point a brawl breaks out? The Koreans said that's what they expected. And sure enough come last Friday we have a headline on CNN.com that read "Korean president impeached amid physical battle".

The opposition came in with security guards and after a protracted scuffle they were able to remove the dissenters and pass the motion in the assembly. This was a scuffle that involved punching, screaming, crying, chair, shoe and paper throwing, and a man attempting to light himself on fire in front of the Legislative Assembly building. Not to be one-upped, another man burst through security barriers in his car and tried to drive it up the front steps and ram through the door, which struck me as a very well thought out attempt at participation in a participatory political system.

I've documented frustration towards the Koreans on this blog before. There were times as I sat at work and watched the drama unfold when I wanted to feel vindicated. The silly behaviour of the Koreans being broadcast for the entire world to see.

The past few days have shown me however, that many Koreans find the behaviour absolutely ridiculous as well. What's even better is that it may have galvanized the populace into actually caring about next month's legislative elections. The two big parties, the ones chiefly responsible for impeachment, are looking at a severe shit-kicking come election day. That, and the fact that the impeachment decision is expected to be overturned by the Supreme Court, mean that Mr. Roh may end up with not only his job back, but with a much larger portion of the National Assembly in the hands of his party.