| National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo bangs the gavel after the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea unilaterally passed a motion calling for firing Interior Minister Lee Sang-min at the Assembly chamber in Seoul, Sunday. Yonhap |
Yoon expected to exercise veto right
By Jung Min-ho
The opposition-controlled National Assembly passed a motion, Sunday, calling for removing Interior Minister Lee Sang-min from the Cabinet post over his "failure" in handling the Itaewon crowd disaster, which killed at least 158 people on Oct. 29.
After lawmakers of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) left the chamber in protest of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea's (DPK) unilateral push for the vote, the motion was approved with backing from 182 lawmakers in the 299-member Assembly.
It was the second such attempt to remove a Cabinet minister of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration, following the eventually vetoed one aimed at Foreign Minister Park Jin over the president's mistake-plagued overseas trips in September.
| Interior Minister Lee Sang-min / Newsis |
Rep. Lee Jae-myung, the DPK leader, claimed approving the latest motion was "inevitable," saying it would be the beginning of uncovering the facts behind the deadly incident.
Speaking to reporters after the vote, Rep. Park Hong-keun, the party's flood leader, urged Yoon to fire the interior minister immediately.
"Given the severity of the case, Yoon would not veto it. He shouldn't," Park said. "We have been calling for [Lee's] resignation … After being rejected, we had no choice but to pass the motion."
In the proposal, the DPK said the minister must take responsibility for failing to plan crowd management in the area and for mishandling the initial calls for help. The DPK also said the minister infuriated the families of the victims by making insensitive claims, such as that the size of the crowd that day "wasn't particularly high" that day.
| Rep. Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, returns to his seat after a speech at the chamber of the National Assembly in Seoul, Sunday. Yonhap |
The move comes as the opposition leader is in a bind following the indictments of two of his closest aides ― Jeong Jin-sang and Kim Yong ― on charges of taking bribes from property developers in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, with some witnesses claiming the city's former mayor was the key person in their "deals" for business favors.
The only reason the DPK passed the motion ― fully knowing that it would be struck down by the president ― is that it wanted to create a distraction from the corruption investigation, Rep. Chung Jin-suk, the PPP's interim leader, argued.
"It was aimed to divert public attention away from the investigation," Chung said. "Who is responsible for creating the huge pool of corruption by using local government authority as part of his strategy for a presidential run? Everyone knows Lee is the next [target] after Jeong Jin-sang and Kim Yong."
The PPP also decided not to participate in the fact-finding committee for the Itaewon disaster, after the opposition party breached the agreed-upon procedure to establish the facts first before spreading blame.
| Lawmakers of the ruling People Power Party walk out of the chamber of the National Assembly in Seoul, Sunday, in protest of the opposition Democratic Party of Korea's unilateral move to pass a motion calling for firing Interior Minister Lee Sang-min. Yonhap |
"A parliamentary probe became useless after the DPK breached to pass the motion before it even started … The committee members expressed their will to leave, given that the probe would only be exploited politically," PPP floor leader Rep. Joo Ho-young said.
Neither the presidential office nor the Ministry of the Interior and Safety showed a reaction to the motion's passage. A presidential official reportedly said the administration will continue working hard to get to the bottom of the deadly incident.
After the incident, Yoon apologized, saying the president is ultimately "responsible for the safety of the people" while promising to reform the system to prevent similar tragedies.
It usually takes a day for an Assembly dismissal motion to reach the president's desk. He is expected to officially announce his decision early this week.
The previous day, the families of the Itaewon victims demanded the interior minister resign at a press conference in Seoul. They vowed to continue their efforts to uncover the facts, asking the government to do the same.