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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (184658)	3/14/2004 3:37:28 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574901

Anyway, that's how my wife explained things to me. My Korean is nowhere near as fluent as hers, so I can't really read what she reads for myself. But I don't have any reason to doubt her interpretation of the events. Tenchusatsu, this article confirms what your wife is reading. The author points out that Roh is fairly inept politically. The other major point........it ain't over til its over. The S.Korean court has to decide if the impeachment should be upheld. ted ************************************************* David DeRosa , president of DeRosa Research & Trading, is an adjunct finance professor at the Yale School of Management and the author of "In Defense of Free Capital Markets." The opinions expressed are his own. North Korea Must Be Happy With Roh Fall By David DeRosa (Update1) March 14 (Bloomberg) -- South Korea's President Roh Moo Hyun, in power for a scant 13 months, was effectively removed from power Friday by an impeachment vote of the legislature. This can't be good news for the U.S.-led effort to disarm North Korea, a nation that is believed to have nuclear weapons. Negotiations to end North Korea's nuclear weapons development involve talks with the two Koreas, the U.S., Japan, Russia and China. Realistically, South Korea was never more than a junior partner in the U.S.-led effort to contain the North. Still, anything that makes South Korea look like a joke republic diminishes the seriousness with which the world takes the threat of the North. Not that Roh is any prince of a leader. He joins an increasing number of democratically elected heads of state, including Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who have been ousted during their terms of office. Neutrality Violation The National Election Commission last week ruled that Roh, 57, by supporting the Uri Party in the campaign for April 15 parliamentary elections, violated a law that requires executive- branch officials to remain neutral. Technically speaking, Roh was suspended from power following the impeachment vote. The country's Constitutional Court will now decide if he's out of office for good. The court has six months to make up its mind. Yun Young Chul, the court's chief justice, promises a ``speedy and accurate'' ruling. If six of the court's nine justices rule against Roh, a special election would be held to replace him. Now, Prime Minister Goh Kun, 66, has assumed the presidency. Interestingly, Goh says he will run the country with the same policies Roh had in place. That means it wasn't Roh's policies, rather Roh himself, that was impeached. Still, South Korea is going to be in a state of political flux while the court makes up its mind. If the court rules for Roh, the legislature will probably find another reason to impeach him all over again. Zero Political Skills As for Roh, he can be said to be a man with no political wisdom or skills. From early on in the election process, he ran on an anti-U.S. platform. Once elected he started to play ball with the U.S. While Roh's downfall is his own fault, bringing it about was a risk for the opposition parties in the legislature. Their gamble is that they face parliamentary elections in April. Surely Roh's supporters will charge the opposition with having engineered a legal coup d'etat. Still, the vote against Roh was decidedly lopsided. More than two-thirds of the legislators voted to remove him; the final vote count was 193 to 2. Very Entertaining If the court rules against Roh and a new president is chosen, you can bet Roh's supporters will attempt to brand the new man a usurper. And what all this means is that North Korean President Kim Jung Il, who openly despises the government of the South, must really have gotten a big kick out of all of it. And the scene he probably liked best was when a brawl broke out among opposing parliamentarians and some furniture was broken during the session that impeached Roh. What a wonderful image of democracy at work. quote.bloomberg.com