Following its anticipated passage through the National Assembly this week, President Yoon Suk Yeol is anticipated to reject the opposition’s move to dismiss Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, according to a presidential official on Tuesday.
Accusing Han of serious incompetence in his role as head of the Cabinet and holding him accountable for what it called the Yoon administration’s failures in areas like the response to Japan’s release of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant and the improper management of last month’s World Scout Jamboree, the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) submitted the motion recommending Han’s dismissal to the Assembly on Monday.
The motion will likely be put to a vote on Thursday during a plenary session.
According to the presidential official speaking to Yonhap News Agency, “a dismissal recommendation motion can only be tried by a political party when the legal or political mistakes of a prime minister or Cabinet member are clear.”
The official stated that Yoon will reject the petition because “a dismissal recommendation motion is a recommendation to the president, as the term itself suggests.”
Since the Yoon administration’s inception, the DP, which currently has a majority in parliament, has carried two votes to remove the interior minister Lee Sang-min and the foreign minister Park Jin. The president rejected both of them.
The presidential office interprets the DP’s action against Han as a political offensive meant to deflect attention from the situation and strengthen party cohesion before a vote in parliament on whether to approve the arrest of DP leader Lee Jae-myung on bribery and other charges is scheduled to take place soon.
Also Read | BlackRock’s largest Singapore-based ETF launch targets Asian climate action