South Korea Enters Period of Uncertainty With President’s Impeachment

SEOUL, South Korea — For her nearly four years in office, President Park Geun-hye of South Korea cooperated closely with the United States, particularly when it came to dealing with her volatile neighbor, North Korea.

A vote on Friday to impeach her now throws both her country and American policy in the region into deep uncertainty, as the North’s nuclear program advances and the incoming administration of Donald J. Trump deliberates over whether to adjust Washington’s stance on how to best contain North Korean aggression.

Ms. Park, a conservative, had adopted a tough approach toward the North, focusing on stronger sanctions. Her administration had also agreed to deploy an American advanced missile defense system that infuriated the Chinese.

Yet her deep unpopularity — the result of a scandal over influence-peddling that led members of her own party to want to oust her — increases the odds that the next election will be won by an advocate of friendlier relations with China.

Ms. Park’s powers are suspended while the Constitutional Court considers whether to remove her permanently. If it votes to do so, South Korea will hold an election for a new president in 60 days. Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn will serve as acting president.

Domestically, her undoing provides the latest example of how corruption remains entrenched at the top echelons of political and corporate life in South Korea, at a moment when the economy is slowing.

Parliament’s impeachment motion accused Ms. Park, the nation’s first female leader, of “extensive and serious violations of the Constitution and the law.” It followed weeks of damaging disclosures that all but paralyzed the government and produced the largest street protests in the nation’s history.

Ms. Park suggested that she intended to fight her impeachment, telling cabinet members hours later that she would “calmly” prepare for the court deliberations and giving no hint that she would resign.

“I am gravely accepting the voices of the people and the National Assembly, and I sincerely hope that the confusion will come to a satisfactory end,” she said in remarks broadcast on national television.

Ms. Park has been accused of allowing a shadowy confidante, the daughter of a religious sect leader, to exercise remarkable influence on matters ranging from choosing top government officials to her wardrobe, and of helping her extort tens of millions of dollars from South Korean companies.

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Thousands of people who had gathered outside the Parliament building in the frigid cold on Friday cheered when the news was announced.

“My heart is beating so fast,” said Han Joo-young, 47, who had come from Paju, north of the capital. “I am so touched that people who are usually powerless can have so much power when they come together.”

A total of 234 lawmakers voted for impeachment, well over the required two-thirds threshold in the 300-seat National Assembly, the lone house of Parliament in South Korea. The vote was by secret ballot, but the results indicated that nearly half of the 128 lawmakers in Ms. Park’s party, Saenuri, had joined the opposition in moving to oust her.

Ms. Park, 64, came to power in early 2013, backed mostly by older Koreans who had hoped she would be a contemporary version of her father, the military dictator Park Chung-hee, often viewed as the modernizer of South Korea.

Instead, she became the least popular leader since the country began democratizing in the late 1980s, according to recent polls. Critics said she was authoritarian and used state power to muzzle critics while shielded by a coterie of advisers.

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The last time South Koreans took to the streets to kick out an unpopular leader, in 1960, they had to fight bloody battles with police officers armed with rifles.

That uprising forced Syngman Rhee, the country’s founding and authoritarian president, to resign and flee into exile in Hawaii. Vice President Lee Ki-poong, a Rhee confidant who was at the center of a corruption scandal, and his family ended their lives in a group suicide as mobs approached their home in Seoul.

In subsequent decades, when South Koreans demanded more democracy, their military dictators, including Ms. Park’s father, brutally suppressed them through martial law, torturing and even executing their leaders.

In 1987, violence erupted again as people took to the streets to demand free presidential elections, forcing the military government to back down.

This time, in a sign of how far South Korea’s democracy has matured, peaceful crowds achieved their goal without a single arrest. Increasingly large numbers of protesters gathered in the capital, including 1.7 million people on Saturday — the largest protest in South Korean history.

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Ms. Park became the first South Korean president to lose an impeachment vote since 2004, when the National Assembly moved to impeach Roh Moo-hyun for violating election laws. Two months later, the Constitutional Court ruled that Mr. Roh’s offense was too minor to justify impeachment and restored him to office. But Ms. Park faces much more serious accusations.

Still, it is difficult to predict when and how the Constitutional Court will rule on Ms. Park’s fate.

Removing her would require the votes of at least six of the nine Constitutional Court judges. Among the current judges, six were appointed by Ms. Park or her conservative predecessor, or are otherwise seen as being close to her party.

The process, which may include hearings, will buy time for Ms. Park’s embattled party to recover from the scandal and prepare for the next presidential election if the court decides to formally unseat her.

Ms. Park joins the ranks of South Korean leaders who have been disgraced near the end of their terms, with their relatives or aides implicated in corruption scandals. An exception was Ms. Park’s father, who was assassinated in 1979 at the height of his dictatorial power and before anyone dared to bring corruption charges against him.

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His and subsequent governments had favored a handful of family-owned conglomerates with tax benefits, lucrative business licenses and buy-Korean and anti-labor policies. The businesses were accused of returning the favors with bribes and suspicious donations.

Through the years, top corporations have been rocked by recurring corruption scandals, including the one that implicated Ms. Park and her confidante, Choi Soon-sil.

In 1988, business tycoons were hauled into a parliamentary hearing to be questioned about millions of dollars they gave to a foundation controlled by the military dictator Chun Doo-hwan.

The scene was repeated this week, when nine business leaders, including Jay Y. Lee, the vice chairman of Samsung, and Chung Mong-koo, the Hyundai chairman, appeared at another parliamentary hearing to be questioned about millions of dollars they gave to two foundations controlled by Ms. Choi.

Ms. Choi has been indicted on charges of leveraging her influence with Ms. Park to extort the money from the businesses. Prosecutors have also identified Ms. Park as a criminal suspect, a first for a president, though she cannot be indicted while in office.

The businessmen acknowledged giving the money, confirming that the requests had come directly from Ms. Park or her aides.

Huh Chang-soo, the chairman of GS Group and the head of the Federation of Korean Industries, the pro-business lobby group that coordinated the donations, put the situation this way: “It is difficult for businesses to say no to a request from the government. That’s the reality in South Korea.”

Some analysts saw the vote and the huge protests as a repudiation of the entire system.

“This impeachment is not only an impeachment against Park Geun-hye,” said Kim Dong-choon, a professor of sociology at Sungkonghoe University in Seoul, “but a judgment against the conservative party and the post-Cold War order that has maintained power in South Korea for so many years.”