South Korea’s interim leader Hwang Kyo-ahn vowed to focus to maintain stability at a time when the country faces challenges from a growing threat from North Korea, a slowing economy and rising uncertainty in the relations with its strategically important allies the United States, China and Japan in the power vacuum.

The country’s Prime Minister Hwang, a former state prosecutor who has never held elected office, on Friday reassured the nation in a televised address shortly after he assumed the leadership from the country’s impeached President Park Geun-hye. Earlier on the day, the National Assembly overwhelmingly voted in favor of a motion to impeach President Park for disgracing the state authority through illicit power abuse. Park was immediately suspended from all duties and authority as the head of state following the vote and Hwang became the country’s ninth acting president since the foundation of the Republic of Korea - the formal name of South Korea - in 1948.

Now eyes are on how the country’s prime minister, who is No. 2 but a mostly ceremonial figure, will double the de-factor chief executive including serving as commander-in-chief of Korea’s 630,000-member military, as the current law does not clearly stipulate the prime minister’s powers in such situations. Political experts expect that the most likely scenario is that Hwang would follow suit of former Prime Minister Goh Kun who temporarily led the country as acting president when late former President Roh Moo-hyun was impeached by the National Assembly in March 2004.

When former Prime Minister Goh assumed presidential duties, he only appointed vice-ministerial positions including vice patriots and veterans affairs minister and president of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security. The announcement of the appointments was also made by the Blue House rather than the Prime Minister’s Office. He also refrained from exercising presidential powers on diplomacy.

As acting head of state, Prime Minister Hwang is expected to receive assistance from the Blue House when carrying out presidential affairs, while as prime minister he will be reported directly by the Prime Minister’s Office, the control tower of administrative affairs. The role of the president’s office is expected to be strictly limited to those most important, urgent matters in foreign affairs, national defense and public order maintenance, while most of the government operations will center on the Prime Minister’s Office.

But it seems to be inevitable that a few pending policies requiring immediate decision making and execution such as the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system would be left in limbo. The defense ministry has been sticking to the position that it should push forward with THAAD deployment as the policy direction has already been set and it only needs to be executed. The opposition party, however, is against the deployment plan, demanding the plan to be immediately halted.

It also remains questionable what extend Hwang would exercise his role in personnel appointments including the two of the Constitutional Court’s nine justices whose terms will end early next year, as well as justice minister to fill in for former justice minister Kim Hyun-woong who tendered his resignation recently. Without prompt replacement of the justices, the Constitutional Court’s rule on the validity of Park’s ouster would be delayed, protracting uncertainty over the economy and national security. The Constitutional Court’s is given six months to deliberate Park’s impeachment case.

A majority of constitutional law experts say that an acting president should refrain from exercising certain president powers but just maintain the status quo as he or she is not the president who is elected by the people.

Chang Young-soo, law professor at Korea University, said that an acting president’s role does not include abolishing policies such as THAAD deployment or introducing new policies. The role also should not involve replacing government ministers without tenure, he added.

By Cho Si-young and Ahn Doo-won

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