Only minutes before South Korea's national assembly was to vote on initiating an impeachment trial against him, Finance Minister Choi Sang-Mok chose to throw in the towel.
"I apologize to the people for not being able to continue my duties under these severe internal and external economic conditions", Choi said in a statement according to the news agency Yonhap.
Trial to be retried
As if it were not enough, the country is shaken by further political turmoil as Acting President Han Duck-Soo announced that he too is resigning, hinting that he may run in the presidential election.
Furthermore, the country's Supreme Court announced that it will request a retrial of the presidential candidate Lee Jae-Myung. He was acquitted of allegations of making false statements during an earlier election campaign and is currently leading in opinion polls.
However, the Supreme Court's decision may mean that Lee cannot run, if he is fined one million won (approximately 6,800 kronor). Then he will be barred from running in elections for at least five years.
His Democratic Party calls it an unfair interference in the election.
"The judiciary is trying to take away people's rights", the party says in a statement.
"The only sensible thing"
On the other hand, South Korea's ousted president Yoon Suk-Yeol's party PPP welcomes the decision, and group leader Kweon Seong-Dong says that the only sensible thing would be for him to withdraw his candidacy.
Yoon is suspected of abuse of power and incitement for when he shocked the country and declared martial law last year. He was ousted in early April when the Constitutional Court ruled in an impeachment trial that the declaration did not meet the legal requirements for a national crisis.
