South Korea’s president faces new impeachment vote
SEOUL, South Korea — Yoon Suk Yeol, the embattled president of South Korea, faces a second parliamentary vote to impeach him Saturday, with the opposition and protesters demanding more ruling party lawmakers abandon support for their leader over his short-lived martial law decree.
Yoon faces impeachment on charges including insurrection 11 days after he sent military troops into the legislature, triggering national outrage and plunging the country into political turmoil. His attempt to place the country under military rule for the first time in 45 years lasted only six hours.
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The opposition parties need eight votes from Yoon’s governing People Power Party to impeach the president. Last Saturday, they fell short after Yoon’s party blocked its passage by boycotting the vote, saying that he should be given a chance to resign rather than be impeached. Only three of its 108 lawmakers participated.
But things look more uncertain for Yoon after he indicated Thursday that he would not step down and will instead fight the National Assembly’s attempt to oust him. The number of governing party lawmakers who have said they would vote for his impeachment has grown to seven.
Yoon’s party planned to hold a meeting of all its lawmakers Saturday morning to discuss the impeachment bill.
No matter the outcome on the vote, the political turmoil and uncertainty unleashed by Yoon’s declaration of martial law will continue. The opposition has said it will call votes every Saturday until Yoon is removed from office.
If Yoon is impeached, he would be suspended from office until the country’s Constitutional Court rules whether to reinstate or formally oust him. The court’s deliberations could last up to six months. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, the No. 2 official in the government hierarchy and who holds no real political power because he is not an elected official, would be expected to step in as the interim leader.
“History will remember your choice,” Lee Jae-myung, the main opposition leader, told governing party lawmakers Friday. “What you should defend is not Yoon Suk Yeol, not your own party, but the livelihoods of people who are out on the cold streets crying for his impeachment.”
Hours before the Assembly was set to vote, thousands of people began converging on the parliament, carrying signs that said, “Impeach Yoon Suk Yeol, the Ringleader of Insurrection!”
In their impeachment bill, opposition lawmakers argued that Yoon’s declaration of martial law violated the constitution, which they said allowed him to use it only in times of war, armed conflict or other national emergencies. They also accused Yoon of perpetrating an insurrection by sending special forces troops into the Assembly in an attempt to block lawmakers from voting down the martial law order, as it is allowed to do under the constitution.
That night, as the troops broke windows and barged into the Assembly, parliamentary aides and citizens put up resistance, spraying fire extinguishers and building barricades with furniture. They bought time for legislators to gather and strike down the martial law, forcing Yoon to retract it.
Insurrection is a crime that is punishable by the death penalty or life imprisonment for anyone found by the court to be a ringleader. The charge is also at the center of an investigation by police and prosecutors into Yoon’s botched attempt to rule the country by martial law.
They have barred Yoon from leaving the country. He faces the possibility of becoming the first president to be arrested while in office. His former defense minister, Kim Yong-hyun, and the former chiefs of the national police and the Seoul metropolitan police have already been arrested on charges of helping carry out insurrection.
Yoon’s popularity rating has plunged to 11%, a record low, according to a Gallup Korea poll released Friday. In the survey, 75% of the respondents supported impeaching Yoon, and 71% said they considered Yoon guilty of insurrection.
