National Assembly passes motion calling for dismissal of interior minister

來源: 開云體育手機app下載 時間: 2023-02-01 23:54:36

Interior Minister Lee Sang-min leaves a plenary parliamentary session where a motion calling for his dismissal was reported, Dec. 8. Yonhap

The opposition-controlled National Assembly on Sunday passed a motion calling for the dismissal of Interior Minister Lee Sang-min over the bungled government response to the deadly Itaewon crowd crush.

The motion won backing from 182 of the 183 lawmakers who cast ballots, with one vote declared invalid.

Members of the ruling People Power Party (PPP), which has opposed the dismissal motion, boycotted the vote and walked out of the chamber en masse before voting began.

The motion, introduced last week by the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), was reported to the National Assembly on Thursday. A vote must take place within 72 hours after a motion is reported at a plenary session or it is automatically scrapped, according to the National Assembly law.

Lee has been under daunting pressure to step down as the head of the interior ministry in charge of supervising the police and the fire agencies to take responsibility for the bungled response to the crowd crush that killed 158 people on Oct. 29.

The motion requires backing from at least 150 lawmakers, and the DPK has 169 seats in the 299-member Assembly.

Even if the motion was passesd, President Yoon Suk-yeol is widely expected to reject it.

The DPK has threatened to impeach the minister if Yoon rejects the dismissal motion.

It marks the second dismissal motion the National Assembly has passed against Yoon's Cabinet members.

In late September, the DPK railroaded a dismissal motion against Foreign Minister Park Jin over a set of mishaps during the president's trips to Britain and the United States earlier that month. Yoon rejected the motion at that time.

An official at the presidential office told Yonhap News Agency the office has "no stance" in response to the motion's passage, a reaction that was widely seen as a rejection of it.

The official said there has been no change in Yoon's stance that the dismissal motion runs against the government's ongoing efforts to get to the bottom of the deadly accident.

It normally takes a day for a parliament-approved dismissal motion to land on the president's desk. After being formally notified of the passage, Yoon is expected to officially announce his rejection. (Yonhap)