Quite eerily, a notion that struck me upon hearing the news of Kim Jong-un’s suspected killing of his half brother Kim Jong-nam was whether evils can be measured and compared.

The young dictator’s alleged orders to poison his international vagrant sibling to remove a potential rival to power will go down in history as the crime of the year or decade, putting its perpetrator at the top rank in the scale of evil, if there is such thing.

Then my liberal thoughts are directed to a source of great confusion in this country today: the “meddling in state affairs” by President Park Geun-hye’s longtime friend Choi Soon-sil. The misdeeds committed by Choi allegedly in collusion with the president deserve a place in my imagined scale of evil, but I cannot acknowledge that they warrant the enormous price the nation has paid since disclosures began sometime last year.

Looking back, the decline began with the ugly factional disputes within President Park’s Saenuri Party -- now the Liberal Korea Party -- prior to the April 2016 parliamentary elections. Losing the majority support in the legislature, the weakened Park administration faced increasingly harsh attacks from opposition parties and the media. There was an abundance of tips from disgruntled insiders of power groups on corruption and the abuse of power.

Signs of the inappropriate practices involving the president and her close associate led to the 234-56 impeachment vote at the opposition-controlled National Assembly on Dec. 9. With the president’s official functions immediately suspended, the Assembly initiated a two-track legal process to prove Park’s guilt -- through the Constitutional Court’s impeachment trial and criminal investigation by an independent counsel. Here we saw the prevalence of politics over law.

As the legal proceedings continued, people awoke from the initial shock of the Choi scandal and began to see things more clearly. In a matter of months, public opinion in our society has split into two irreconcilable positions for and against the ouster of the president. The conservative forces banded together under the cause of protecting the nation from the threat of the “Reds,” which they identified as being the liberals.

The top court held 17 hearings in the 80 days up to Monday on the charges filed by the National Assembly. The independent counsel, on the other hand, is ready to indict over 30 incumbent and former officials and other individuals involved in the alleged misdeeds of Park and Choi, while providing substantial grounds for the presidential impeachment.

It is almost certain that the Constitutional Court will make its final judgment before March 13 when Justice Lee Jung-mi will retire after six years of service, reducing the number of judges on the panel to seven, only one above the quorum of six required for an impeachment ruling. The grand finale is approaching but it will be the beginning of serious national turmoil, whether the court rules in favor or against the president.

The Constitution stipulates a snap presidential election within 60 days of an impeachment ruling or any other event causing a vacancy in the position. Presidential candidates are considering how they would respond to a court decision for or against the president, weighing what impact their choice of action would have on voters.

Front-runner Moon Jae-in once warned of a “revolution” in the event the impeachment is rejected, but later vaguely hinted at acceptance perhaps because he saw little chance of Park’s retention of her position.

Among others, An Hee-jung who has risen to second place in recent weeks based on his middle-of-the-road policies on security and welfare issues is still ambivalent, saying he would not be able to defy “general public sentiment” on any court ruling.

During this moment of great unease, some right-wing politicians are suggesting an alternative approach – Park’s voluntary resignation.

Park marked the fourth anniversary of her inauguration Saturday, without any noticeable event, not even tea with her secretaries. She is having the hardest time of her life since she lost both her parents in the space of five years. She made public apologies three times and offered to relinquish her powers if the Assembly agreed to install a prime minister who would lead the administration on her behalf, only to be snubbed by the opposition.

In the meantime, media outlets competed to expose the private life of the female president to prove her incompetence and dependence on unqualified, unofficial aides. Her initial attitude of self-blame changed to a combative posture of self-vindication, which was shown in an interview with a strongly sympathetic internet broadcaster. She remained uncooperative with the independent counsel’s investigation, despite her earlier assurances, and refused to attend her impeachment hearings.

On the anniversary and the hours afterward, I imagine the president must have contemplated what would be the best thing for her to do for the nation and herself. I don’t know if her thoughts included a possible resignation before the court makes its ruling. Park’s ego must be pushing her to hold out to the end of the impeachment procedure, telling her that all the aberrations alleged by her adversaries were not serious enough to drive her out of office.

However, the leader who has often professed to have dedicated herself entirely to the nation should have deeply pondered what would happen in the event of her being forced out or retained. Neither political parties nor the National Assembly would be able to control public outbursts, and would likely aggravate the situation instead. If there is anyone who can prevent a catastrophic development, it is Park.

She alone can eliminate the cause for disorder by removing herself from the center of the extreme confrontation. If Park remains in the Blue House until February 2018, we can envision little more than a vegetable president. One last time, she can tell the nation with an open heart that she was making self-sacrifices in order to help achieve national reconciliation and stave off the worst political crisis since democratic reforms in 1987.

Then let us end it all there and concentrate our endeavors to create a world devoid of men like the young tyrant in the North, who is doing things a thousand times more condemnable than the whole episode of depravity that shook the Republic of Korea for almost a year.


By Kim Myong-sik

Kim Myong-sik is a former editorial writer for The Korea Herald. He can be reached at kmyongsik@hanmail.net – Ed.