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| Wednesday, 10 March 2004 |
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S.Korean opposition seeks to unite to impeach Roh SEOUL, Tuesday (Reuters) South Korea's main opposition party leaders rallied wavering members on Tuesday for an unprecedented bid to impeach President Roh Moo-hyun in a move that would cause chaos weeks before an election. The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) agreed on Monday in principle to join the smaller Millennium Democratic Party in submitting an impeachment bill to parliament on Tuesday over the president's refusal to apologise for partisan comments. "This requires a highly political and strategic decision," Eun Jin-su, a GNP spokesman, said by telephone, referring to whether the party would join in the bid to impeach Roh. Impeachment - often threatened but not carried through by opposition parties - would thrust South Korea into uncharted constitutional territory as its economy, Asia's fourth largest, recovers and it grapples with a nuclear crisis in North Korea. The National Election Commission said last week Roh had violated election law by speaking in favour of the breakaway Uri Party last month ahead of an April 15 parliamentary election, but did not penalise him. The MDP has 62 seats in the 273-seat chamber, but it was not clear that all its members and all GNP members would back the vote because of internal feuding and the looming election. About 40 of the 144 members of the GNP have not indicated whether they are behind the move and their votes are needed for the two-thirds of assembly members needed to pass an impeachment bill. |
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