People Power Party lawmaker Kim Sang-wook participates in the vote for the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol at the National Assembly's main chamber in Yeouido, Seoul, Saturday. (Yonhap)
Divisions within the People Power Party deepened significantly following the vote to impeach South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, with senior lawmakers criticizing party Chair Hang Dong-hoon and lawmakers who disobeyed the party line.
Rep. Yoo Young-ha, who previously served as legal counsel for former President Park Geun-hye, criticized fellow party members who cast votes in favor of the impeachment motion.
"Heaven will take away your political lives," he wrote on his Facebook account. "I assure you, your political careers are over."
President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached at the second attempt Saturday, with at least 12 lawmakers from his People Power Party supporting the motion.
The vote occurred amid deepening divisions within the party, pitting the supporters of the party chair against Yoon loyalists, who opposed impeachment. The Yoon supporters made up a majority of party lawmakers, who set a party line to vote against impeachment, warning that removing a second conservative leader could jeopardize the party's unity and future.
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 result of Saturday's vote revealed that five more lawmakers had defied the party line. Their identities are unknown, as the vote was anonymous.
The vote also had three abstentions and eight invalid votes, which some observers say could be counted as ruling party votes also defying the party stance.
Supreme Council members loyal to Han, along with other pro-Yoon lawmakers, have already offered to resign. This is expected to pave the way for the ruling party to transition into an emergency steering committee, with the pro-Yoon faction widely anticipated to take control.
Appearing at a TV interview after the vote, Rep. Kim Sang-wook who had held a one-man rally to convince fellow ruling party lawmakers to pass the motion, said, "I believed the president was unfit for the role, as he directly undermined constitutional order and liberal democracy -- the core values of conservatism. I saw him as a traitor to conservative principles."
Of the lawmakers who voted in favor, he said, “They showed incredible courage, fully accepting all the criticism and the possibility of losing everything -- even facing condemnation so severe that they might have no place to stand. They made their decision with that resolve.”
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