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Two main opposition parties of the Republic of Korea (ROK) submitted a motion to impeach President Roh Moo-hyun to the National Assembly on Tuesday afternoon.
A total of 159 lawmakers from the biggest opposition the Grand National Party (GNP) and the second largest opposition the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) endorsed the impeachment motion against Roh.
The motion came after the ROK National Election Commission (NEC) ruled recently that Roh had violated the election law by publicly voicing support for the pro-government Uri Party.
Roh once said openly that he would do whatever he could within legal bounds to help the Uri Party win as many seats as possible at the April 15 parliament general election. But the NEC defined Roh's fault as "minor."
The two main oppositions urged Roh to make public apology as of last Sunday for what he had said, but the president refused to do so.
According to some rules, the government should maintain neutrality during the campaign of the election.
The Uri Party was organized by those lawmakers who split from the MDP late last year and strongly back Roh. It now takes 46 seats in the parliament.
Roh Moo-hyun won the presidential election in December 2002 as the candidate of the MDP by defeating the candidate of the GNP Lee Hoi-chang, and took office to begin his five-year term as the top leader of the ROK in February 2003.
However, Roh quit the MDP in last October, which led to the former ruling party's adoption of the anti-Roh policy.
The GNP controls 144 seats of the current 272-member National Assembly, while the MDP holds 62 seats of the parliament.
The motion can be effective only when two-thirds of the total 272 legislators vote for it, according to the constitution of the ROK.
A floor vote must take place no less than 24 and no more than 72 hours after the introduction of the motion.
If the single-house legislature approves the impeachment, the Constitutional Court has six months to approve or reject it with two-thirds of its nine justices.
Rightly after the opposition submitted the motion, the Blue House, the presidential office, convened meeting of senior aids.
"The Blue House will stoically watch the proceedings of the opposition's impeachment motion, from its introduction to its results," said Presidential spokesman Yoon Tai-young after the meeting.
However, Roh himself has so far not made any response to the motion.
Many local analysts see no high chance for the opposition to oust the president. They pointed out the number of legislators endorsing the motion was 20 more than the number needed for the motion to stand in the parliament, but 22 short of two-thirds majority needed for passage.
"The opposition move is based on partisan interests and is unlikely to succeed," said Lee Woo-yong, a professor of business administration at Seoul's Sogang University.
Public polls also showed that most of the local people did not agree with the impeachment motion. Some local social civic groups said the opposition camps wanted to use their power in the parliament to gain ballots in the coming general election.
Analysts also said the opposition did that to divert the public attention over the slush funds issue. The GNP and MDP have been swamped in corruption scandals since late last year.
The prosecutions announced on Monday the mid-term results of a four-month probe into the fundraising scandals involving the two main parties.
The GNP has been found to receive 82.3 billion won (US$70 million) illegal funds from local business conglomerates during the 2002 presidential election, while the MDP has been found to accept 11.3 billion won (US$9.6 million) illegal donations.
The Uri Party has already expressed its will to block the impeachment bill. And if the National Assembly failed to hold ballot on the motion as of Saturday, it would be null automatically.
(Xinhua News Agency March 10, 2004)
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