South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol arrives at the end of his getaway. After decreeing martial law last week, which was in effect for six hours, shook democratic institutions, and plunged the country into one of its biggest crises in decades, the leader has lost an impeachment motion in the National Assembly (the Parliament). The initiative to overthrow the head of state has been approved with 204 votes in favor, 85 against, 3 abstentions and 8 invalid votes. Now the Constitutional Court will be the body in charge of deciding whether to reinstate or dismiss Yoon. If confirmed by the court, he would become the second head of state to be removed, after the motion against former President Park Geun-hye in 2017. But it could take time: the court has up to six months to deliberate. Until then, it will be Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, the second state authority, who will assume the duties of head of government.
The result, in any case, is a political triumph for the opposition. In just a week the tables have turned. Last Saturday, Yoon resisted a motion raised against him by the opposition, after a hectic session that was marked by the boycott of deputies from his own party, the conservative People’s Power Party: all but three left the chamber en masse, while the Assembly was surrounded by tens of thousands of citizens who braved the cold to demand the president’s fall.
For the initiative to dismiss him to be approved, two-thirds of the Chamber (200 of the 300 seats) needed to be added, so the opposition bloc needed to obtain the support of at least eight votes from the Government formation. In recent days, up to seven PPP parliamentarians had publicly leaned in favor of ending the mandate of a head of state who was, since the declaration of the extreme measure, a kind of political zombie, without real power, and He is increasingly surrounded by an investigation for leading an insurrection, a crime that could even carry the death penalty.
In front of the doors of the Assembly, in the streets of Yoeuido, the river island where the Legislative branch is based, they have been gathering as the time for voting arrived (it started at 4:00 p.m. local time, the 8:00 in the morning in mainland Spain) again thousands of people peacefully, waving signs demanding the dismissal of Yoon and colored glow sticks, one of those common objects at concerts k-pop. The protests in Korea have a joyful air, they are more festive than combative congregations. The organizers of the call estimated that up to a million people could gather this Saturday, although police figures are around 150,000 people.
“Yoon Suk-yeol mobilized the military to destroy the Constitution. “It has destroyed the democracy that has been developed through bloody and sweaty struggles over the past decades,” claimed Kim Min-moon, permanent representative of the United Korean Women’s Association, who took the floor as the main speaker at the event convened to the doors of the Assembly. “The only constitutional solution is dismissal,” he said, as reported by the local Yonhap agency.
The new motion was introduced by the main opposition party, the center-left Democratic Party (PD), and five other minority parties on Thursday, arguing that Yoon’s declaration of emergency martial law violated the Constitution and other laws. .
Yoon decreed the extreme measure surprisingly on the night of December 3, opening the box of the darkest demons of past military authoritarianism in what is today one of the most solid democracies in Asia. The South Korean president justified the decision with a hodgepodge of arguments against the opposition, which he accused of controlling Parliament, engaging in anti-state activities and sympathizing with North Korea.
Yoon’s announcement was immediately met with the majority rejection of opposition politicians and his own party, and the Assembly managed to end the extreme measure in the following hours thanks to an extraordinary vote held at dawn while the military, who were carrying out orders of the head of state, tried to access the chamber and interrupt the session.
Since then, citizens have taken to the streets with numerous protests, vigils and pilgrimages, while the opposition tried to force Yoon’s downfall, through his resignation or an impeachment motion. With Yoon immersed in an uncomfortable silence in the first days, the ruling party has tried to control the timing of his resignation, but without specifying the deadlines. The situation has become unsustainable as investigations into the martial law plot have progressed. Some of the military commanders involved have revealed how Yoon even asked the Army to storm the Assembly and arrest political leaders. The Police went on Wednesday to search the presidential offices, including the office of the head of state, and the authorities of the Corruption Investigation Office of Senior Officials, in charge of directing the investigations, are already assessing the president’s arrest. The investigation has already claimed some valuable pieces, leading to arrests such as that of former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, who on Wednesday tried to take his own life in prison.
This Saturday’s vote was reached with almost 75% of South Koreans in favor of the impeachment and with a meager 11% approval of Yoon, the lowest level since he assumed the head of state in May 2022, according to a Gallup flash poll conducted this week and released on Friday.
On Thursday, the still president of South Korea, clinging to his position, defended, in a televised speech without questions, his actions as an “act of government”; He rejected the charges of insurrection and once again raised the specter of North Korean interference in public affairs. He also assured that he would fight until the end, whatever that epilogue was: the aforementioned investigation that places him as the leader of the plot or the new impeachment motion presented against him.
