| Captured from Cheong Wa Dae website |
By Park Si-soo
“Looking at how President Moon handles the coronavirus crisis gives me the feeling that he is the President of China, not South Korea.”
This is a phrase from a lengthy online petition to President Moon, titled “Call for impeachment of President Moon Jae-in.”
It was posted on Feb. 4 on the petition section of the president's office website and has garnered over 800,000 supporting signatures as of 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, passing the minimum threshold of 200,000 signatures at which Moon's office has promised to give an answer to all qualified petitions.
“The primary role of the President is keeping citizens safe and doing everything to protect them,” the petition reads. “If he has this in mind, why doesn't he ban the entry of people coming from China? The government's measures to counter (the crisis) are ineffective and useless, and devoid of a fundamental countermeasure, which is an entry ban from ground-zero.”
The petitioner also criticized the government for being loose in controlling exports of face masks to China amid a supply shortage in the domestic market.
“I can't stand idle any longer. I don't think Moon Jae-in is our President. Hence, I call for his impeachment,” the petition ends.
It is the second 200,000-plus signature petition calling for Moon's impeachment. The first, last April, was prompted by petitioners' claims of Moon being unwilling to thwart North Korea's development of nuclear weapons.
The presidential office responded that under the separation of powers, “this is an issue which the government finds inappropriate to answer.”