On Thursday, South Korea’s Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and other senior aides offered their resignation to President Yoon Suk Yeol. The development comes after the ruling party’s defeat in parliamentary elections.
Liberal opposition parties in South Korea are set to win a landslide victory in Wednesday’s parliamentary election, as per vote counts, a result that could make conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol a lame duck for his remaining three years in office.
The votes count showed the main opposition Democratic Party and its satellite party appear to have won a combined 175 seats in the 300-member National Assembly. Under a propositional representation system, another small liberal opposition party was expected to win 12 seats under a proportional representation system.
Yoon’s ruling People Power Party and its satellite party were projected to have obtained 109 seats.
Later Thursday, the final official results were expected. But the outcome means the liberal opposition forces would extend their control of the parliament, though they will likely fail to garner the supermajority of 200 seats that gives them legislative powers to pass bills vetoed by a president and even impeach him or her.
Wednesday’s election was widely seen as a mid-term confidence vote on Yoon, a former top prosecutor who took office in 2022 for a single five-year term.
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