WASHINGTON — South Korea’s National Assembly is due to vote Friday on a motion to impeach President Park Geun-hye, a first step toward forcing her out of office over her role in a corruption and influence-peddling scandal.

The opposition-controlled legislature introduced an impeachment motion Thursday, triggering a vote within 72 hours. Because Friday is the last day of the year that lawmakers convene, analysts expect the vote to take place then.

Most expect the motion to pass, meaning that Park would be suspended immediately and the prime minister would take over the day-to-day running of the country while South Korea’s Constitutional Court decides whether to uphold the motion, a process that could take six months.

The opposition parties and independents have 172 seats in the 300-member assembly, so they need support from 29 lawmakers from Park’s Saenuri party to get the two-thirds majority the motion needs to pass.

Earlier this week, analysts said the pro-impeachment forces might be scratching to get to 200, but a series of revelations over the last two days has further hurt Park.

Most damning was a report by the left-leaning Hankyoreh newspaper that Park was getting her hair done on the day that the Sewol ferry sank in April 2014, claiming more than 300 lives, most of them high school students.

The Hankyoreh reported that Park’s hairdresser was at the presidential Blue House for almost two of those seven hours. But the Blue House said the hairdresser spent only 20 minutes attending to Park that afternoon, and repeated its assertion that Park was working on the day the ferry sank, issuing commands as the rescue operation was underway.

But the reports come amid a climate of intense dissatisfaction with Park, whose approval ratings have fallen to 4 percent. Huge demonstrations against her have taken place in central Seoul every Saturday for the last six weeks.

Washington Post