As some rumors are turning into facts, the Choi Soon-sil scandal has exploded into a crisis that threatens to bring down President Park Geun-hye.

At the root of the crisis is public revulsion over the thought that Choi, the daughter of Choi Tae-min, the founder of a religious cult, could have had influence over the president and could have profited from her relationship with the president. Choi Tae-min, a friend of the president’s father Park Chung-hee, became close to her after her mother was assassinated in 1974. The president has denied that Choi had influenced her, but the public does not believe her.

The crisis has produced an increasing number of calls for Park to resign, or failing that, for her to be impeached. The Democratic Party of Korea, the main opposition party, has called on Park to delegate her power to a prime minister of the National Assembly’s choosing. This would leave her in office as a figure head for the remainder of her term. To quell the crisis, Park has issued two apologies and has offered to cooperate with prosecutors investigating influence-peddling in the Blue House. The public has taken the apologies as insincere attempts to cling onto power, which has only fanned the flames of their anger.

At the heart of their outrage is a deep sense of shame. Many Koreans wonder how they could have chosen such a feckless leader despite all the progress the nation has made. There is a widespread feeling that Korea has failed and has lost its way. Older Koreans feel that they have let younger generations down and younger generations feel unease about their nation’s future.

The situation remains fluid, but three futures await President Park: resignation, impeachment, or figurehead. The first two would mean a presidential election within 60 days of leaving office, while the third would mean a presidential election in December 2017. Under the first two scenarios, the prime minister would serve as acting president until the election.

To date, President Park has not hinted at a resignation, despite increasing calls to do so. In a parliamentary system, prime ministers resign to take responsibility for unpopular policies or to strengthen their party’s position before an election. They have an incentive to do so because it makes them look like a team player, which helps their reputation and leaves the door open to a political comeback later.

In a presidential system, however, resignation means disgrace, and most resign only amid the great threat of removal from office. Once the threat of chaos becomes clear, resignation for the good of the nation becomes the lesser of the two evils. Syngman Rhee, the first president of Korea, resigned amid massive street demonstrations in 1960. US President Richard Nixon resigned amid the threat of impeachment in 1974.

President Park’s approval rating stands at 5 percent, the lowest recorded by any Korean president. To be effective, a president needs leverage in the form of popularity to push his or her agenda. If popularity falls too low, the president is left powerless, leaving the nation essentially leaderless. At 5 percent, President Park’s approval rating leaves the nation leaderless with more than one year left in her term.

Impeachment is a convulsion that freezes the political system, leaving the nation leaderless. Under the Constitution, the National Assembly needs a supermajority to impeach the president after which the Constitutional Court decides the case. The only president to be impeached was Roh Moo-hyun in 2004, but the Constitutional Court decided that the charges did not merit removal from office. The public did not support impeachment and it helped Roh’s party win a majority in the National Assembly election a month later.

At present support for resignation and impeachment is about 55 percent, but resignation has more support. Impeachment means overturning the results of an election, which people are reluctant to support. To gain acceptance, impeachment needs overwhelming evidence. For a president, of course, removal from office through impeachment means permanent disgrace.

The easiest solution is for the president to delegate authority to the prime minister and remain in office as a figurehead. This saves the nation from the stress of resignation or impeachment, but it leaves the nation in the hands of a weak unelected official for a year. Resignation is middle ground between figurehead status and impeachment. It also offers the president a way to take responsibility for her mistakes and, above all, to put the good of the nation first.

By Robert J. Fouser

Robert J. Fouser, a former associate professor of Korean language education at Seoul National University, writes on Korea from Ann Arbor, Michigan. He can be reached at kagoshimabob@gmail.com. -- Ed.