Korean President Impeachment Won't Derail 2018 Winter Olympics

(ATR) Geun Hye Park will not open the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang as planned.

A South Korean constitutional court affirmed the impeachment against Park today, ending her tenure as President. A snap election will take place on May 9, as is required by law.

Park was scheduled to open the Games on Feb. 9, 2018, just weeks before her five year term was supposed to end. Now, the Olympics will face an unscheduled leadership transition for the second straight Games, due to a corruption scandal.

The final months to the 2016 Olympics in Rio were punctuated with controversy over the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff who was removed from office shortly after the Games/

South Korea’s National Assembly overwhelmingly voted to impeach Park last December, for her role as the head of an influence peddling scandal. Park, along with confidant Soon Sil Choi allegedly worked together to profit from South Korea’s major conglomerates as well as create a government blacklist of artistic figures and companies who did not comply. Implicated in the scandal are previous Minister of Culture and Sports Yoon Sun Cho and head of the Samsung Group Jay Lee.

Acting President Hwang Kyo Ahn spoke about the national importance of the Olympics during PyeongChang 2018’s one year to go ceremony, insisting the Games would not be disrupted. He echoed sentiments expressed by both the IOC and PyeongChang 2018 during the scandal.

During the political crisis, the IOC told Around the Rings the relationship with South Korea’s government was the "same as in previous editions of the Games." PyeongChang 2018 told ATR that "working relations among staff in POCOG, Blue House, and all relevant stakeholders are consistent."

When PyeongChang 2018 reached the one year to go milestone last month, POCOG President Hee Beom Lee stressed that nearly all venue construction was finished with a year to go. As an organizing committee reaches the final threshold of preparations, as long as civil servants who had worked on the project for years were not replaced there would be little disruption from a political transition.

As an example, there were three different sports ministers for Brazil in its final year of Rio de Janeiro preparations. One of those ministers, Ricardo Leyser, explained to ATR that as long as "key points like the cost of the venues and facilities, the legacy for sport, for the city and for the country, the general concept of the master plan," had been addressed the Olympic project had become largely self sufficient. He said any shakeup would have some effects, such as delays of some measures taken by the federal government, but it would not derail the project.

Written by Aaron Bauer

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