|
Yes, you're right. There was a high level of commitment by the overwhelming
majority of the population (~80% of the population was in favor of impeachment
vs ~12% against), but the reason people kept showing up weekend after weekend
for the demonstrations was due to a lack of faith in all three branches of
government, i.e. it was to keep public pressure on the legislative, judicial,
and to a lesser extent the executive branches. The day the most people showed
up (2.32 million, Dec. 3rd, 2016) was the week before the parliament passed the
impeachment bill. People really wanted to express their determination and anger
as even some opposition party members were balking at the idea of impeaching
the president (we have 300 members of parliament, 200 votes were needed for the
bill to pass, and 234 voted in favor). > Do you know if anything will be done or can be done to prevent that from
happening again? My understanding is that in a democratic system, there is always the risk of
putting someone like Park (or a more dramatic example is Hitler) in power. A
sign of a well-functioning democracy is whether appropriate social mechanisms
exist so that people can freely exercise the power to take back and undo what
they think is a mistake. I think history shows the only thing that works to
prevent these kinds of mistakes is an informed public, educating the masses,
and taking an active role (however small) in social and political matters. > How crooked is the system on Korea compared with the US? During the past 10 years in Korea (which was under a conservative government),
transparency indices dropped dramatically across the board, e.g. social,
financial, political, freedom of press. Transparency International
(http://www.transparency.org/) puts out a report every year on government
corruption, and in 2016 Korea placed 52nd out of 176 countries (out of the 35
OECD countries Korea placed 29th). For comparison, the US placed 18th and the
UK 10th out of 176 countries (Denmark and New Zealand tied for the top spot for
being the least corrupt). The charges ex-president Park faced in the impeachment trial (held in the
constitutional court) are different than what she will now be facing in a
criminal court. The constitutional court confirmed charges of extortion, abuse
of power, and leaking government secrets, which were the basis for upholding
the impeachment. Now, having been forced from power and no longer enjoying
immunity, the criminal court will decide whether she's criminally guilty of
these charges as well as bribery charges from Samsung, Hyundai, SK, Lotte, etc.
which carries a minimum of 10 years to a maximum sentence of life in prison. |