Echoes of Watergate

By John Burton

I was a university student in Washington D.C. in the early 1970s and so witnessed at first hand the unfolding of the Watergate scandal that brought down the administration of Richard Nixon. It is interesting to see now how Choigate bears both similarities and differences to that major U.S. political scandal.

First just to recap what was the Watergate scandal. In June 1972, several men were discovered breaking into the headquarters of the opposition Democratic Party in the Watergate complex. It was later disclosed that the burglars were linked to the Nixon administration and were part of a wider illegal campaign to harass the president's political opponents.

Although the Washington Post reported on the connections between the burglary and the Nixon administration, the president still was re-elected in November 1972 in one of the biggest electoral landslides in American history.

But in early 1973, new questions started to be asked on what Nixon knew about the break-in. He fired several close advisors in April 1973 to take responsibility. The U.S. Senate launched an investigation andthe U.S. Justice Department appointed a special prosecutor.

Former officials then disclosed that Nixon had recorded many conversations in the White House. Investigators sought access to the tape recordings to determine Nixon's role in the scandal. The administration refused to hand over the tapes, citing executive privilege, and then fired the special prosecutor in October 1973.

In July 1974, the U.S Supreme Court ordered that the Nixon Administration to hand over the tapes. The audio recordings provided conclusive proof that Nixon had attempted to cover up his links to the burglary. This led to calls for his impeachment and the president decided to resign on August 1974.

The Watergate saga dragged on for more than two years. In comparison, Choigate has proceeded at hyper speed, which is appropriate for a country known for its ppalippali mentality. Since the scandal essentially erupted on October 25 with the JTBC broadcast report that Choi Soon-sil had access to top government documents, Korea has already gone through many of the steps that the U.S. took far longer to take during the Watergate scandal.

President Park Geun-hye dismissed some of her closest aides to deflect blame. Prosecutors have named Park an accomplice in helping Choi allegedly extort money from the chaebol. Now Park has made a carefully crafted offer to resign in the face of impeachment demands. It took nearly two years for the U.S. to reach the same point in dealing with Nixon.

The events in Seoul have also been conducted on a much grander scale than anything during Watergate. There were no weekly protests of more than a million people urging Nixon to step down. While Watergate was largely confined to the political sphere, Choigate has already metastasized into a broader investigation into possible corrupt links between the chaebol and the Park administration.

But where Korea departs from the Watergate scenario is what comes next. During Watergate, Americans knew there were established and effective procedures for dealing with impeachment. The U.S. House of Representatives would vote for a bill of impeachment by a simple majority and if it passed, the U.S. Senate would then conduct an impeachment trial against Nixon.

In contrast, Korea's impeachment process can be messy. The National Assembly must approve an impeachment motion by a two-thirds majority before the case is heard by the Constitutional Court. But this would need the support of some ruling party lawmakers.

Indeed, some critics believe that Park is betting on the fractious nature of the political situation to keep her in office. By refusing to resign directly, but leaving the decision in the hands of the National Assembly, Park may be hoping that lawmakers will not be able to agree on the conditions for her departure. The three main parties could also split over who to name as caretaker prime minister and interim national leader before a presidential election is held.

Meanwhile, to borrow several famous phrases that came out of the Watergate scandal, Park, like Nixon, has "stonewalled" investigators by refusing so far to cooperate with them, making it difficult to find the "smoking gun" evidence that would decisively link her to the corruption charges.

An impeachment process would likely to take at least eight months to complete, including debates in the National Assembly and a subsequent 180-day period for the Constitutional Court to deliberate. By then, a ruling against Park would be largely a moot point since she would have had only months left in her term anyway.

Korea faces months of political paralysis when Seoul needs strong leadership to deal with North Korea's nuclear threat and the possible protectionist policies of a Trump administration.

What Choigate has exposed are procedural flaws in the constitution when it comes to presidential succession at a time of political crisis, undermining an effective democratic governing system.Meanwhile,Korea is being left, to use another famous Watergate term, to "twist slowly in wind."

John Burton, a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is now a Seoul-based independent journalist and media consultant. He can be reached at johnburtonft@yahoo.com.