At least 23 Defections from People Power Party... In Addition to 12 Votes in Favor, 11 Abstentions and Invalid Votes Also Recorded

President Yoon Suk-yeol was impeached by the National Assembly on the 14th, putting the People Power Party in its greatest crisis since its founding. It is estimated that at least 23 members of the People Power Party defected regarding the impeachment motion against President Yoon.

On the 14th, the impeachment motion against President Yoon Seok-yeol was passed at the 4th plenary session of the 419th National Assembly (extraordinary session) held at the National Assembly. Photo by Kim Hyun-min

On the same day, the National Assembly held a plenary session to vote on the "Impeachment Motion against President Yoon Suk-yeol," passing the motion with 204 votes in favor, 85 against, 3 abstentions, and 8 invalid votes out of a total of 300 votes. According to the Constitution, impeachment of the president requires the approval of two-thirds of the total members.

Based solely on the votes in favor, 12 members of the People Power Party broke the party line, which was to reject the motion, and voted in favor. Among the 7 members who publicly expressed support for the impeachment, an additional 5 members also voted in favor.

However, votes that did not follow the party line were detected in other forms as well.

These include 3 abstentions and 8 invalid votes. All 11 votes effectively amounted to abstaining from the vote instead of opposing it. These votes are interpreted as expressing the complex feelings of some ruling party members who could neither support nor reject the impeachment.

Meanwhile, Woo Won-shik, Speaker of the National Assembly, is scheduled to sign the original and a copy of the impeachment resolution at his office at 5:20 p.m. that day. Jeong Cheong-rae, chairman of the National Assembly’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee and a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, who received the original resolution, will immediately submit it to the Constitutional Court. Once the Constitutional Court receives it, the impeachment trial process begins. The copy of the resolution will be delivered directly to the Presidential Office by the director of the National Assembly Secretariat. From the moment the copy is delivered to the Presidential Office, President Yoon’s duties will be suspended.