South Korea’s SEOUL After he vehemently defended his actions, support for the motion seems to be growing within his own party. South Korean lawmakers will vote for the second time on Saturday on whether to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol for his unsuccessful attempt to declare martial law.
Since Yoon imposed interim martial law last week, which plunged the East Asian democracy and important U.S. ally into instability, there have been numerous calls for his resignation. The brief decree, which prohibited any political action and controlled the news media, was rescinded by Yoon hours after parliament unanimously rejected it.
Former chief prosecutor Yoon, 63, is prohibited from traveling abroad while he is being investigated for potential rebellion charges. On Wednesday, police made an attempted attempt to raid his office, but security personnel prevented them from doing so.
Questions have been raised over who is in charge of the tenth-largest economy in the world as Yoon’s ruling People Power Party (PPP) claims he is essentially suspended from duty and that it is collaborating with Prime Minister Han Duck-soo to handle state matters.
Yoon, who was elected to a single five-year term in 2022, has had difficulty implementing his policies in the opposition-controlled parliament, and the imposition of martial law has only made his popularity worse. According to a Gallup Korea poll released on Friday, Yoon’s approval rating dropped from 13% a week ago to a record low of 11%, according to the Yonhap news agency.
In a forceful speech on Thursday, Yoon accused the opposition of crippling the government to the point that he thought proclaiming martial law was his only option, despite his two apology statements for the concern his order caused the public. He pledged to fight until the end.
The Democratic Party’s chairman, Lee Jae-myung, declared on Friday that Yoon’s statement amounted to a declaration of war against the populace.
Lee, who narrowly lost to Yoon in the 2022 presidential race, stated that impeachment is the quickest and most reliable means to end the situation.
History will remember and document your decision, he said, urging PPP legislators to support the second impeachment move.
Lee also expressed gratitude to the US and its allies for their unwavering support of democracy in South Korea, which has had decades of military-authoritarian rule and is home to almost 30,000 US troops.
One week after a previous impeachment motion failed due to a boycott by PPP lawmakers, the vote is scheduled for Saturday at approximately 4 p.m. local time (2 a.m. ET).
Late Thursday, the second impeachment resolution was filed by six opposition parties. Despite having a majority in parliament, the opposition is eight MPs shy of the 200 seats required for the bill to pass.
The motion is within one vote of passing since at least seven PPP members have publicly said that they now favor impeachment after the first vote failed.
The Constitutional Court would have six months to determine whether to uphold the impeachment motion if Yoon were to be impeached.
Communist-controlledAfter not covering the declaration of martial law for a week, North Korea has capitalized on the political unrest in the South, emphasizing demonstrations calling for the overthrow of the puppet Yoon Suk Yeol regime in a second day of state media coverage on Thursday. Since the 1950–53 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, the two Koreas are still officially at war.
In a surprise late-night speech on Dec. 3, Yoon, who takes a tougher stance on North Korea than his Democratic predecessor, declared martial law and blamed the opposition for having sympathy for the nuclear-armed state without offering any proof.
Without providing any proof, Yoon claimed in his speech on Thursday that North Korea had breached South Korea’s National Election Commission last year, revealing security flaws that he claimed called into question the validity of the results of the April parliamentary election, which was won handily by the liberal opposition.
The commission’s secretary general, Kim Yong-bin, stated on Friday that all votes are cast using paper ballots and that there was no proof of election fraud or system hacking.
He asserted that our system makes electoral fraud impossible.
The leader of his party seemed to change his mind after Yoon’s statement on Thursday, stating that the president has to be removed from office.
According to PPP leader Han Dong-hoon, the speech was a de facto admission that he had engaged in rebellion and an explanation of the circumstances. I suggest making voting for impeachment a party platform for the PPP.
Jennifer Jett reported from Hong Kong, while Stella Kim reported from Seoul, South Korea.
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