National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik casts his vote at the National Assembly for the motion to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol on Saturday. (Yonhap)
The second parliamentary attempt to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol passed Saturday, with at least 12 lawmakers from the ruling People Power Party supporting the motion.
Before the vote, seven People Power Party members had announced they would back the impeachment, despite fierce opposition from the party's mainstream. The vote took place amid escalating divisions within the party, with conflicts between the pro-Han Dong-hoon, the party chairman, and pro-Yoon Suk Yeol factions.
The result revealed that five more lawmakers defied the party’s stance. In addition to Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo and Rep. Kim Yea-ji, who had supported the first impeachment motion, five other PPP members — Reps. Cho Kyung-tae, Kim Sang-wook, Kim Jae-sub, Jin Jong-oh and Han Ji-ah — publicly declared they would vote to impeach the president. The identities of the remaining five lawmakers who helped pass the motion remain undisclosed, as the vote was anonymous.
Despite Yoon’s defense of his martial law declaration in a televised address Thursday, party leader Han Dong-hoon called for the president's impeachment and expulsion from the party. Meanwhile, newly elected People Power Party Floor Leader Rep. Kweon Seong-dong reiterated that the party’s official position was to oppose the opposition-led impeachment motion.
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