CGTN Europe speaks to Dr. John Nilsson-Wright, Head of Japan and Koreas Programme at the Centre for Geopolitics at the University of Cambridge.
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00:00Dr. John Nilsson-Wright is the head of the Japan and Korea's programme at the University of Cambridge Centre for Geopolitics.
00:08Well, Dr. Nilsson-Wright, the big question here is, what on earth is going on less than two weeks after President Yoon was suspended from power?
00:16Now we have the acting president impeached.
00:19Well, this reflects the continuing battle between the two main parties to resolve this impeachment issue.
00:26The critical issue has been the former acting president, as he is now, having been impeached.
00:33Acting President Han refused to endorse the appointment of three additional members to the constitutional court.
00:42This was something that the opposition parties were saying was a necessary part of the process of concluding the impeachment of President Yoon.
00:51Their concern has been that if those three additional members were not appointed,
00:56then there was a risk that that impeachment vote would not, in fact, be upheld by the constitutional court.
01:03And their suspicion was that then acting President Han was acting in support of President Yoon
01:11in seeking to basically stall the appointment of those additional three constitutional court nominees.
01:19We are now in this difficult position of seeing power transfer yet again from acting President Han to acting President Choi.
01:29There is a big question mark over whether that impeachment vote of the acting president will be upheld by the constitutional court.
01:37So, frankly, we're in a period of more uncertainty and continuing conflict between the conservative governing party and the opposition Democratic Party.
01:47And in all of this, we have to remember that the Korean public are watching this with a great deal of concern.
01:54Tomorrow, there will be big demonstrations, I think, in the center of Seoul,
01:59continuing, I think, concern about what this means in terms of South Korea's economic position.
02:05We've seen a drop in the value of the won to a 15-year low.
02:10All of this, I think, is further confirmation that we have not seen the end to this major constitutional crisis.
02:17Yes, a major crisis. And Dr. Nilsson, right, what does it actually mean to be impeached then?
02:23And what are the most serious consequences?
02:27Well, for the acting presidents, former President Han, former Prime Minister Han,
02:34there's one beyond the practical challenge of no longer being able to govern, no longer being able to lead the government.
02:41He has to step down. He himself is under suspicion.
02:44The opposition have argued that he may have been covertly sympathetic to President Yoon's own declaration of martial law,
02:52which, of course, sparked this crisis in the first instance.
02:56Former Prime Minister Han has denied that.
03:00There's a question mark over whether he himself will be investigated by the prosecutor's office on these allegations that he may have been sympathetic to the martial law declaration.
03:11As for the new acting president, President Choi, he's made it clear that he will try and govern and maintain stability.
03:21And to be fair to his outgoing predecessor, Mr. Han also said that he wanted to see that the current political turmoil should be dispelled, that there should be greater stability.
03:34All those, of course, are worthy declarations.
03:37But we saw, as your correspondent pointed out, in the immediate aftermath of that vote in the National Assembly,
03:43a large number of conservative lawmakers surrounding the dais where the speaker was convening that vote.
03:50It's a measure, I think, of just how much disagreement there are between the two sides of the political aisle in South Korea at the moment.