Roundup: S. Korea's political scandal expected to be prolonged

A political scandal involving South Korean President Park Geun-hye and her longtime confidante is expected to be prolonged.

Opposition parties demand Park step down, but they have little option but to wait for Park's own determination.

The main opposition Minjoo Party on Wednesday launched a political campaign to let the scandal-hit president resign. Choo Mi-ae, the party's chairwoman, said her party will carry out a nationwide campaign to retrieve the sovereign power granted to President Park.

The Minjoo Party had initially demanded that President Park distance herself from state affairs and that Park appoint a neutral prime minister, proposed by a parliamentary agreement, to let the prime minister form a coalition cabinet.

The No. 1 opposition party, however, changed its position and joined movements by minor oppositions People's Party and Justice Party to call on the embattled president to immediately step down.

The about-turn followed last Saturday's mass rally that drew over one million South Koreans in Seoul alone. It was the biggest rally since about a million protested against the military dictatorship in June 1987.

The anti-Park rally and the political campaign to let the president voluntarily step down seem not to come to an end in the foreseeable future as Park's office refused the resignation demand.

The presidential Blue House has maintained that Park's resignation or her unconditional divorce from all state affairs violates the constitution that guarantees the single, five-year term except for treason and insurrection charges, indicating a strong will to sustain presidency until Park's tenure ends in February 2018.

Two options may be left for the opposition bloc: reaching a political agreement to accept the proposal to form a new cabinet by the parliament-suggested prime minister; or impeaching President Park.

The first option would face strong public objections as people demanded Park's immediate resignation as seen in the recent protest rallies.

The second option is hard to come true as the impeachment requires a two-thirds vote, or 200 votes in favor, from the 300-seat National Assembly. The ruling Saenuri Party has more than 120 parliamentary seats, and the constitutional court may vote down the impeachment motion as seen in 2004.

Calls are growing in the opposition bloc for the scandal-plagued president to resign voluntarily and be investigated by prosecutors in earnest, but Park's attorney requested the investigation be delayed.

The prosecution office had claimed the need for a face-to-face questioning of President Park no later than Wednesday given that it plans to indict Park's decades-long friend Choi Soon-sil suspected of intervening in state affairs from the shadows, around Saturday.

Park's attorney said Tuesday that the number of the face-to-face questioning should be minimized as rival political parties agreed to a bill to appoint a special prosecutor who will probe the case independently. Questioning the president through documents would be desirable, the counsel noted.

Prosecutors said it can investigate President Park as late as Friday, but the direct questioning looks hard to be carried out by the current investigative unit of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office which is incapable of forcing the president to be investigated.

The attorney, who is seeking to let the president avoid multiple investigations, is forecast to accept a document questioning by the current investigative unit and allow the special prosecutor to directly investigate the president after allegations prove to be true.

Opposition parties denounced the delayed investigation. Choo, the Minjoo Party chairwoman, told a supreme council meeting that it was deplorable for the president's lawyer to insist on the minimized probe and document questioning when new suspicions surrounding the scandal emerge every day.

Choo raised suspicions about the president's attempt to destroy evidence, saying the case cannot be concluded without investigation into the president who is suspected of having a deep involvement.

Park Jie-won, floor leader of the minor opposition People's Party, told a party meeting that the presidential office and the ruling Saenuri Party are seeking to buy time to escape from the scandal. Endit