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By Rachel Lee
With President Park Geun-hye's fate now in the hands of the Constitutional Court following the National Assembly's impeachment, Friday, seven out of 10 citizens believe she should step down before the court makes its ruling, according to the latest survey.
The poll, conducted by Hankook Research after the impeachment at the request of Hankook Ilbo, sister paper of The Korea Times, showed 69.7 percent of respondents called for Park's voluntary resignation before the ruling, which will take up to six months. Only 22 percent said Park should stay until the court's ruling.
The survey was conducted with 1,000 Koreans on Dec. 9 and 10, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
The results mean people do not back Park's legal battle to stay in power.
By region, Gwangju and the Jeolla provinces had the largest number among those calling for Park's early resignation (84.5 percent), followed by Gangwon Province and Jeju Island (74.1 percent).
Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province showed the lowest rate with 51.2 percent.
By age, people in their 40s had the biggest number among those who believed Park's early resignation was necessary before the court ruling with 79.3 percent. The lowest went to respondents in their 60s that showed 55.6 percent.
Regarding the National Assembly's passing of the motion to impeach Park, 85 percent of the people surveyed agreed with the Assembly's action, the poll found. Just over 13 percent of the respondents did not agree with the passing of the motion, with 1.8 percent not commenting.
For next president, the former head of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), Moon Jae-in, was ranked first with 19.7 percent support, followed by Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with 14.9 percent and 14.1 percent, respectively.
The survey also found that 44.6 percent of the people believed Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who began working as acting head of state since the passing of the motion, should keep his job for now to avoid any chaos, and 40 percent said a new acting leader should be selected since the President was impeached.
The impeachment motion, signed by 171 opposition and independent lawmakers, passed overwhelmingly with 234 in favor, 56 against, two abstentions and seven invalid votes in the 300-member Assembly last week.
Park is the second Korean President to be impeached after the late President Roh Moo-hyun in 2004. Roh was able to return to office thanks to wide public support after the Constitutional Court overturned the Assembly's decision.
The opposition submitted a joint motion to impeach Park, Dec. 3, stating her alleged constitutional and law violations including abuse of power, coercion, bribery and dereliction of duty on the day of the Sewol ferry sinking, which claimed more than 300 lives.
