Still infighting in the face of impeachment

The Democratic Party (DP) is gearing up for a presidential impeachment, capitalizing on the house disarray of the ruling front. The National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee under DP domination plans to hold two hearings to gauge public opinions on a legislative motion to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol. It is summoning the first lady and her mother to the hearing.

A motion demanding public endorsement can be referred to a subcommittee of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee if it gathers support from more than 50,000 citizens within a month. The majority party argues the standing committee is justified to deal with the impeachment motion because the petition gathered support from 1.3 million people.

But the Civil Petitions Treatment Act clearly states that petitions cannot be accepted when the matter is under investigation, inspection, trial process, arbitration and coordination. The cases under investigation — such as President Yoon’s alleged pressure on military investigations of the suspicious death of a Marine, the first lady’s acceptance of a luxury bag from a dubious pastor and her alleged stock manipulation — cannot stand valid for civil petitions. Still, the DP is pushing for public hearings as if it is moving on a prewritten script. The party will likely build the grounds for Yoon’s impeachment during the hearings and follow up with a vote in the legislature it dominates. Even if the impeachment motion is voted down, the DP will certainly move to Plan B and organize mass protests on the streets, just like it did before impeaching former President Park Geun-hye.

The DP is moving fast because the final rulings on its boss Lee Jae-myung — currently on trials on the charges of breaking the election law and committing subornation of perjury — will be delivered in September and October. While the DP is bent on protecting its boss and impeaching the president, the governing People Power Party (PPP) is engrossed in infighting over the first lady’s text messages to former PPP interim head Han Dong-hoon with 10 days left before the national convention to elect its new leadership. The Telegram text disclosure itself had been suicidal. The fact that the first lady asked Han for advice on handling the handbag scandal is controversial, not to mention the revelation of her denial of attacking Han through her personal army of trolls.

The texts have only helped intensify the DP’s attack on the first lady and its campaign to oust President Yoon. PPP lawmakers loyal to the president even accuse Han of orchestrating online posts to his favor through his own army of online commentators. Such a reckless slander campaign is suicidal. Can the PPP navigate against the DP-led impeachment tsunami no matter who becomes its new leader?