South Korea to Elect New President in May, Government Says
By CHOE SANG-HUNMARCH 15, 2017
SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans will go to the polls in May to elect a successor to Park Geun-hye,
whose presidency ended last week in a historic court ruling, the government announced on Wednesday.
"But I have concluded that it is not appropriate for me to run and
that I should focus on working for the stability of state affairs and the fair management of the presidential election." Ms. Park was the first South Korean leader forced from office under popular pressure since the country’s founding president, Syngman Rhee, fled into exile in Hawaii in 1960.
By law, the country must elect a new president within 60 days of the ruling,
and all the major political parties have announced schedules for primary races to select their candidates.
In recent surveys, Mr. Hwang has been the only viable potential conservative candidate,
but he has still ranked a distant second in the surveys, or third behind Ahn Hee-jung, a liberal provincial governor.
Prosecutors said that she conspired with her secretive longtime confidante, Choi Soon-sil, to collect tens of millions of dollars from big businesses like Samsung, and
that some of the money represented bribes for political favors.
Although prosecutors have identified Ms. Park as a criminal suspect accused of bribery, extortion
and abuse of power in recent months, they could not indict her or even summon her by force while she was president.
