The siege against the president of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, advances. This Monday, the Ministry of Justice prohibited the head of state from leaving the country as a preventive measure in response to the investigation initiated by his decision to impose martial law last week that kept the Asian country in check for a few hours, and later plunged it into one of its deepest political crises since the democratic transition. The measure has been requested by the Corruption Investigation Office of Senior Officials, an entity entrusted with the task of inspecting senior officials. Meanwhile, the opposition accuses the ruling party of orchestrating a “second rebellion” by allowing Yoon to remain in office after the failed impeachment motion voted on Saturday, and announcing that he will try to carry out a new parliamentary initiative to remove the top leader.
At this time, several organizations have open investigations against the head of Government, who continues de facto at the head of the country, and is still the commander in chief of the Armed Forces. The South Korean prosecutor’s office reported on Sunday that it was also formally investigating Yoon, according to the Yonhap agency. The police have been doing it since last Thursday. The fence is not only tightening around the highest leader. His already resigned Defense Minister, Kim Yong-hyun, allegedly considered the person who advised him to impose military control in the country, was also detained on Sunday.
Martial law was in effect for six hours. It was reversed by the president in the early hours of Wednesday, after a dizzying vote in the National Assembly that demanded its withdrawal. Parliament, at that time, had been surrounded by police and military special forces with the mission of entering the chamber, preventing the vote and arresting political leaders. Citizens and politicians blocked the passage of the uniformed men so that it could be carried out.
Both the president and the defense minister, as well as other senior officials such as the Chief of the Army Staff and Martial Law Commander, Park An-soo, have been denounced for various crimes — including insurrection, rebellion, abuse of authority to instigate arrest and violations of the National Assembly Law. The complaints have been made by various groups and representatives of civil society. Insurrection can carry life imprisonment and even the death penalty.
Save the furniture
After the sterile motion raised on Saturday against the president, his party, the conservative People’s Power Party (PPP), is trying to save the day by controlling the timing of the transition. The formation argues that, in practice, Yoon no longer has any effective power, and that his fall is imminent. But he has not given deadlines. Only promises. “Through an early and orderly departure of the president, we will minimize chaos for the Republic of Korea [nombre oficial del país] and its people, we will stabilize the political situation and restore liberal democracy,” Han Dong-hoon, leader of the ruling party, said on Sunday. To avoid chaos and a power vacuum, Han has stressed that his party will maintain constant consultations with Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, the second highest authority in the State. The president, who apologized to the public on Saturday in a brief televised speech in which he assured that he acted out of “despair”, would thus practically be a political zombie.
But the controlled exit proposed by the PPP does not convince the opposition bloc at all. Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung on Sunday accused the ruling party and the prime minister of “destroying the constitutional order,” after the announcement that they would work hand in hand to manage state affairs following the failure of the impeachment vote. “It means that Yoon Suk-yeol will be left orchestrating, while using conspirators to maintain this state of insurrection,” Lee said. “This represents the ‘second rebellion’ in a new guise.”
The PD, center-left and the main force in Parliament, has announced that it intends to present a new motion to dismiss the president in the Chamber on Wednesday, which would be voted on next Saturday. But it is still difficult for it to prosper. The opposition needs to collect at least eight votes in the ranks of the PPP to reach the required two-thirds majority in the House. That is: 200 of the 300 seats. The impeachment motion raised last week failed after an eventful vote boycotted by the formation of the Government, whose deputies withdrew en masse from the chamber. Only three of the 108 conservative parliamentarians stayed to cast their ballots in the polls. The votes were not even counted as they did not reach the minimum threshold of 200 cast.
Little by little, as the chaos gives way to the serenity of the appearances and investigations into what happened, more details of the puzzle of the night when martial law was executed are becoming known. On Friday, the head of the Army’s Special Warfare Command, Lieutenant General Kwak Jong-keun, one of those responsible for the mission to take over the National Assembly, responded before a commission of parliamentarians why he defied the orders of his superior, the former Minister of Defense, to take over Parliament and arrest public officials. “I did not carry out that task even knowing that it would be insubordination because, in my opinion, dragging legislators was clearly an illegal act,” he said, as reported by the South Korean Yonhap agency. He added that he had prohibited giving live ammunition to the soldiers deployed that night in the National Assembly.
