Assembly to vote on impeachment motion today

The National Assembly is scheduled to deal with the impeachment motions against Prosecutor General Park Soon-Yong and Deputy Prosecutor General Shin Seung-Nam at its plenary session on Friday.

However, a controversy is expected to flare up due to the conflicting strategies of the ruling and opposition parties, with the opposition Grand National Party pressing for the motions to be dealt with through voting and the Millennium Democratic Party trying to adjourn the Assembly session with its members¡¯ boycott on attending the parliament, which would result in the motions being discarded automatically.

Given the situation, as Assembly Speaker Lee Man-Sup intends to convene the session and take votes, if a majority of the Assemblymen -- 137 or more -- attend the meeting, the fate of the motions appears to hinge on whether the members of the splinter United Liberal Democrats and independent candidates attend the session. Some hard-line ULD members are drawing particular attention, including Reps. Kang Chang-Hee, Jeong Jin-Suk and Lee Jae-Sun, who supported the disposal of the motions through voting.

MDP spokesman Park Byeong-Seug asserted that the prosecutors are legally subject to the parliamentary impeachment and that the GNP-initiated motions are a fragrant violation of the constitution and related laws, adding that therefore the impeachment proposals themselves are fundamentally invalid.

On the other hand, the GNP issued a special statement citing five reasons for the impeachment motions, in which the party contends that they should be passed without fail in order to salvage the nation.

Yoon Young-Chan yyc11@donga.com