The Waiting Game

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Since being stripped of his presidency three weeks ago, Roh Moo Hyun has had a lot of downtime. He spent a weekend hiking with his family on a mountain overlooking the Blue House, the presidential mansion where he still resides. An aide says that on workdays Roh plows through a Korean translation of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's autobiography. He's been on TV, but didn't speak: since the impeachment, Roh hasn't addressed the nation.

This week, South Korea's nine-judge Constitutional Court begins hearing arguments over Roh's ouster. His lawyers intend to argue that the impeachment was railroaded through the National Assembly and should be thrown out on procedural grounds. If the court doesn't bite, they plan to argue that the first charge against Roh—that he voiced support for the Uri Party in the upcoming National Assembly election, even though he's required to be neutral as President—was trivial, and that there is no basis in constitutional law for the other two charges of economic mismanagement and corruption among his aides.

A big question is whether the court—which has never ruled on an impeachment—will restrict itself to legal arguments, or will consider public sentiment as reflected in the election three weeks away.

If the Uri Party attracts huge support, that might be viewed by the court as a public vote on the impeachment. The party is riding high in opinion polls, although it was recently forced to abandon its offices after the media revealed that the rent was partly being paid with illegal campaign donations. Its new headquarters: a dingy warehouse. Eager to halt its slide in the polls, the opposition Grand National Party last week elected a new chairperson: Park Geun Hye, popular daughter of assassinated dictator Park Chung Hee. It has also moved its workers to humble digs: a vacant lot, where they will work in tents and converted shipping containers. During the impeachment, Koreans saw that their politicians have passion and aggression aplenty. Now the pols want to show their humility.