South Korean opposition files motion to impeach president after martial law debacle

Anyone who went to bed early yesterday in South Korea will have woken up this morning as if nothing — or almost nothing — had happened. But in between, for a few hours, a political earthquake kept the country and the rest of the world on edge. Now only the hangover remains, the extent of which is yet to be determined. The political back-and-forth in Seoul began on Tuesday night, when the conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared emergency martial law without warning, accusing the opposition of controlling parliament, engaging in anti-state activities, and sympathizing with North Korea. Hours later, in the early hours of the morning, Yoon himself announced that he was withdrawing the measure after the National Assembly, whose members even used fire extinguishers to prevent troops from entering the legislature, revoked it in an emergency vote, without all the deputies present and with the streets of the capital filled with protestors.

The very brief statement could become the current president’s political epitaph. The opposition, consisting of six formations including the Democratic Party and which holds a parliamentary majority, demanded Yoon’s resignation on Wednesday and has presented before the Assembly a motion for his dismissal. As reported by South Korean news agency Yonhap, the petition has been signed by 190 opposition deputies and one independent, without the support of any ruling party deputy. This motion will be presented to the parliamentary plenary session on Thursday and could be put to a vote between Friday and Saturday.

The South Korean Assembly can remove the president if more than two-thirds of lawmakers vote in favor. President Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP) controls 108 seats in the 300-seat House, so the motion would require the backing of some members of his party to go through. The Democratic Party, along with other smaller formations, has 192 seats. If approved in the plenary, the head of state would be suspended from office. His definitive removal requires the pronouncement of the Constitutional Court, once it has analyzed the evidence presented by the parties.

“Even if martial law has been revoked, he cannot get rid of the treason charges. It has been clearly shown to the whole nation that President Yoon cannot lead the country normally,” Park Chan-dae, parliamentary spokesman for the Democratic Party, told the media. “He should step back. Resign immediately. That is what the people demand,” he added.

For his part, the secretary general of the assembly, Kim Min-ki, has assured that he will hold the army accountable for its “illegal and unconstitutional actions” and the “damage caused” to the heart of the legislative branch. He also announced that, as of today, neither defense officials nor police officers will be allowed to enter the chamber. “This is an urgent measure to protect the security of lawmakers and ensure the functioning of the National Assembly,” he stressed. Kim explained at a press conference that the police closed the entrances to the parliament and prevented lawmakers from entering from 22.50 (local time), shortly after President Yoon’s announcement. He added that between 11:48 p.m. and 1:18 a.m., the Defense Ministry deployed nearly 300 soldiers, who stormed the building: 230 arrived aboard 24 helicopters and landed directly inside the compound, while 50 others jumped over the gates to enter. He also showed images recorded by security cameras, which, he said, will be published soon.

In parallel, 10 senior advisors close to the president have offered to resign en masse, the presidential office said Wednesday morning. They include Chief of Staff Chung Jin-suk, National Security Bureau director Shin Won-sik and National Policy chief Sung Tae-yook, Yonhap news agency reported.

Yoon was scheduled to make his first public appearance since the lifting of martial law on Wednesday morning, but it was postponed and, for the moment, it is not known when it will take place. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, meanwhile, has vowed that he will continue to “serve the people until the end.” “I understand that people are very worried,” he said in a written note quoted by Yonhap news agency. The number two of the State Council of South Korea said he is aware of the political responsibility of “the whole process” that has led to the current situation. Han’s functions include that of Yoon’s deputy and mediator between the president and the other members of the government. “I ask the Cabinet to fulfill its responsibility together with civil servants from all ministries to ensure that security and daily life are maintained without the slightest disruption,” he added.

Although many analysts interpreted the announcement of martial law in terms of domestic politics, in view of the plummeting popularity of the president and his growing difficulties in governing without a parliamentary majority, the mention of Seoul’s hermetic northern neighbor, with atomic capabilites and a renewed harmony with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, put the capitals of the world on their guard. The Korean peninsula continues to be a volatile place, with Cold War wounds still open, and where everything can blow up via a miscalculation: technically, the North and the South are still at war despite the armistice sealed in 1953; their shared border is militarized and the United States, South Korea’s ally for decades, has over 28,000 military personnel stationed in the country.

For a few hours it seemed that a new crisis was breaking out in these times of global uncertainty, with the White House in full swing and the unpredictable Donald Trump about to take the baton of the world’s leading power. The announcement that the military would take over and that political activities, demonstrations, and strikes would be banned and the media made subject to control caused the citizens of one of the most stable democracies in Asia, consolidated since the 1980s, hold their breath.

Yoon’s announcement was immediately met with the rejection of the majority of opposition politicians and those of his own party, who called on citizens and the military to reject the martial decree. The crisis stems from convoluted and stormy domestic politics. The Democratic Party, the main opposition force and parliamentary majority, intended to file motions of censure this week to dismiss three prosecutors (including the chief prosecutor) for not bringing charges against the first lady, Kim Keon-hee, following an investigation into her alleged involvement in a stock manipulation scheme. In addition, the center-left formation sought to push for the dismissal of the chairman of the Board of Audit and Inspection, Choe Jae-hae, for refusing to comply with a parliamentary request to hand over documents related to an audit on the relocation of the presidential office, which was carried out in 2022 as part of one of Yoon’s campaign promises.

Government spokesperson Jeong Hye-jeon said Friday that the motion against Choe was “unprecedented in our constitutional history and damages the foundations of the constitutional order,” Yonhap news agency reported at the time. Regarding the attempted dismissal of prosecutors, she said: “It is clearly revenge, just because the results of the investigation were not what the opposition party wanted.”

The government interpreted the motion as an attempt to stop further trials of Democratic Party members. Lee Jae-myung, leader of the center-left party, is being investigated for several cases, including the alleged acceptance of bribes in connection with illicit transfers to North Korea, and for participating in a corruption scheme surrounding an urban development project in Seongnam, a city located in the north of the country. In early November, he was given a suspended prison sentence for violating electoral law by making false public statements during the 2022 presidential campaign, which he lost by a razor-thin margin (0.73 percentage points) to the incumbent.

Yoon, who assumed the presidency in May of that year, is the first leader in South Korean democracy not to have had control of the National Assembly at any time during his term of office. Although his party was even weaker after the April legislative elections than during the first part of the legislature, the PPP retains enough seats to impose presidential vetoes. Yoon has used this mechanism on 12 occasions in just over two years, resulting in 25 bills failing to pass. The most recent example is from just a week ago, after the National Assembly passed a legislative draft proposing the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate two allegations related to the first lady: her alleged involvement in a stock manipulation scheme and her alleged interference in election nominations through a power broker.

The political and social situation in the country has been complicated for months. Yoon’s conservative party suffered a major defeat in last April’s legislative elections, ceding power in the unicameral assembly to the main opposition party, which won almost two thirds of the seats. These elections were a kind of referendum on the president, in the absence of tangible progress in social and economic policies. South Korea faces problems such as a sluggish economy, runaway housing prices, and rising inflation. It also suffers from a rapidly aging population and a huge gender gap. This was compounded earlier this year by a doctors’ strike that began in February and led to cancellations of operations and treatments.

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