S. Korea’s Park to Accept Impeachment Vote

South Korean President Park Geun-hye said on Tuesday she would accept the result of an impeachment vote against her this week but indicated she would not step down now as demanded by opposition parties, a top official of her Saenuri Party said. Park also said she had been willing to accept her party’s proposal for her to step down in April next year, Saenuri Party official Chung Jin-suk said, after a meeting between party leaders and the embattled president. Park faces a pivotal week, with an effort to impeach her gaining support from within her party, Reuters reported. Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans rallied in Seoul on Saturday in the sixth straight weekend of protests demanding the resignation of the scandal-tainted president, which took them closer than ever to the presidential Blue House. The march came after three opposition parties introduced a bill for the parliament to impeach Park who could become the first democratically elected leader to leave office early. The bill, signed by 171 members of the 300-seat unicameral assembly, said Park had violated the constitution and criminal law by abusing her power in the influence-peddling scandal.