South Korea’s president faced an impeachment motion on Wednesday following his sudden declaration of martial law — a short-lived order lifted after parliament convened overnight to reject it.
Hundreds of heavily armed troops and military helicopters encircled the National Assembly in Seoul on Tuesday night, following President Yoon Suk Yeol’s unexpected move. To enter the building, 190 lawmakers broke the barricades and climbed fences. As they made it to the voting chamber, they unanimously rejected Yoon’s martial law order, forcing him to rescind it six hours after he made the announcement.
Yoon’s stunning declaration has plunged Asia’s fourth-largest economy into a political crisis, as the main opposition party, the Democratic Party, and five others submitted a motion to impeach him.
“The declaration is illegal and constitutes a criminal act, directly violating the constitution and other laws. It is essentially a coup d’etat … The president should be held accountable,” Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Min-Seok said during a press conference in front of the parliament.
In South Korea, the president is impeached if two-thirds of the 300-member legislature vote in favor of doing so. The National Assembly has 72 hours to vote on the motion, after which the Constitutional Court has six months to confirm the impeachment.
Yoon, who won the presidency in 2022 by a margin of less than 1 percent, has been stuck in a political gridlock with the opposition — which controls the parliament — since he took office, while his approval rating in polls has fallen sharply.
He said in a televised address on Tuesday night that he had declared martial law to “protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces” and accused the opposition of paralyzing the government with “anti-state activities.”
Tens of thousands of people in major cities took to the streets the next day to call for Yoon’s immediate resignation and arrest in scenes that bore resemblance to 2016 protests that led to the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye.
“There is no answer to this crisis except for Yoon to step down. How can someone declare martial law in 21st-century South Korea?” Bianca Won, a protester who joined a vigil in the Gwanghwamun area of Seoul, told Arab News.
“The government does not care about people’s livelihoods and safety,” she said. “There were troops blocking the entrance to the National Assembly. Civilians were fighting with armed troops.” Yoon was the first South Korean president to invoke martial law since the country achieved full democracy nearly 40 years ago.
After hundreds of people died amid a crackdown on protesters before the last martial law was eventually lifted in 1981, Yoon’s move brought back bitter memories for the older generation. “At first, when my daughter told me, I thought it was fake news. I couldn’t believe it,” Kim Hee-jung, a 50-year-old woman from the northwestern city of Suwon, told Arab News.
“It reminded me of when I was young … I was scared. I didn’t want my daughter to go through what I went through,” she said. “Yoon’s government is doing everything wrong … His administration is an utter chaos. He just needs to step down.”