President Park Geun-hye Impeached

On the Friday following Park Geun-hye's refusal to resign, the South Korean National Assembly voted for her impeachment. They needed 2/3 majority out of their 300 seats, which they easily achieved with 234 voting against Geun-hye. This meant that a good portion of her own party voted to have her impeached. The voice of the people clearly won this time, following several protests—one of them consisting of 1.7 million people, the biggest protest in South Korea's history. The Constitutional Court is voting whether to let her finish her term or to completely throw her out and hold a new election. In the meantime, prime minister Hwang Kyo-ahn will be acting as president while Geun-hye's presidential powers are taken away. If they hold another election it will be in 2 months. Hwang Kyo-ahn, who claims to be independent but appears to be more right-wing, is not popular with the people, as he has defended and stood by Park Geun-hye during this time.

One of the biggest concerns of the people after Geun-hye's impeachment is North Korea. Not only does an impeachment weaken the government and the unity of the people, but Geun-hye was particularly rough about North Korea and focused a lot on dealing with their not-so-friendly neighbor in form of tighter sanctions etc. Most of the time people search for new candidates with opposite qualities in cases like this, probably subconsciously thinking they won't make the same mistakes because of that. It will be very hard, assuming the next president is liberal, for South Korea to find a president who is confrontational with North Korea. They also think the next president will likely be friendlier with China and even North Korea and less friendly with the US, as most progressives are. Looking at history, South Korea has not generally done well with liberal presidents.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/world/asia/south-korea-president-park-geun-hye-impeached.html?_r=0