The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) said Tuesday it will wait two more days to introduce an impeachment motion against acting President Han Duck-soo over his refusal to promulgate two special counsel bills targeting President Yoon Suk Yeol and first lady Kim Keon Hee, Yonhap News Agency reported.
The DP had initially planned to introduce the impeachment motion at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. But it later decided to postpone the plan to see whether Han appoints Constitutional Court justices once the motions for their appointments are passed during a plenary session Thursday, Rep. Park Chan-dae, the DP floor leader, said.
"We have decided to wait with patience to see whether our demands are implemented on Thursday," Park said.
"Thursday is the last opportunity. Acting President Han should uphold the people's order and actively cooperate in ending insurrection," he said, adding that an impeachment motion against Han would be reported to the National Assembly in a plenary meeting on Friday should it be introduced Thursday.
By law, an impeachment motion must be put to a vote between 24 and 72 hours after it is reported to a plenary session.
A two-thirds majority is required to pass an impeachment motion against the president, but the bar for senior officials is lower at a simple majority.
The ruling People Power Party (PPP) has argued the acting president should be considered the president when it comes to the vote, while the DP has countered he should be seen as the prime minister.
PPP floor leader Kweon Seong-dong reaffirmed his party's stance in a press conference, saying that the impeachment requirements for Han should be equivalent to that for a president.
Kweon denounced the DP for its plan to file an impeachment motion against the acting president, bringing up how DP leader Lee Jae-myung had promised not to impeach Han on concerns over causing confusion in state affairs.
The DP earlier decided to push for an impeachment motion against the acting president hours after a Cabinet meeting led by Han ended without reviewing the two bills calling for special counsel investigations into Yoon's short-lived imposition of martial law and corruption allegations involving Kim.
"There is no other way to interpret this than (as a tactic) to buy time and prolong the insurrection," Park, the DP floor leader, said at an earlier party meeting, referring to characterizations of Yoon's martial law declaration as an insurrection.
The DP had earlier threatened to take steps to impeach Han unless he signed the bills into law Tuesday.
The party, however, was reportedly considering waiting until Han made a decision on the issue of appointing justices to the Constitutional Court.
The nine-member bench is currently short of three justices ahead of a trial on the National Assembly's impeachment of Yoon over his martial law decree.
National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik held a press conference earlier in the day and slammed the acting president for postponing a decision on the special counsel bills and the court appointments with a call for bipartisan negotiations toward a compromise.
"The special counsel investigations are a demand of the people," Woo said. "Whether he demands reconsideration or accepts them, that is a decision for the acting president to make."
On the court appointments, Woo said, "Appointing Constitutional Court justices chosen by the National Assembly is not a subject of political negotiation."
A senior official at the Prime Minister's Office, however, had expressed regret over the DP's threat to impeach Han.
"I find it extremely regrettable and believe they will think it over more carefully from here on," he told reporters.
