President Yoon Suk Yeol’s decision to fight his impeachment at the constitutional court has thrown South Korea into an extended period of political unrest, with the country stunned by his naivete that a martial law coup could help him stop the opposition party’s obstructionism on the floor of parliament. With his political defeat now looking final, South Korea is bracing for a new election next year that will follow the constitutional court’s final deliberation.
An avalanche of public condemnation at home and abroad has pressured the ruling People Power Party to change its position and allow its legislators to vote freely on impeaching their president. Thus with the second motion gaining sufficient vote, the impeachment bill passed the National Assembly’s floor on December 14 for a full and final deliberation at the Constitutional Court. It has 180 days to reach a judgment, after which it will provide another 60 days to elect a new president to formally replace Yoon. The party hopes this schedule will give it enough time to get in shape and campaign to defeat the Democratic Party.
South Korea’s young democracy has been unable to shake off its tribal habit of taking your political antagonist at the other side of the fence as a sworn enemy. In the past 20 years, two of the country’s past presidents – Roh Moo Hyun and Park Keun Hye – have faced impeachment, with Park successfully impeached on flimsy corruption charges. Who investigated Park? None other than Yoon Suk Yeol, at the time a prosecutor at the Seoul District Prosecution. A historical irony indeed.
But the price of the political coup has been high. Initial investigation has revealed that Yoon had meticulously planned for the December 3 martial law declaration with secret meetings with several army generals in control of military intelligence and the capital garrison command. At least half a dozen generals are under investigation, with four of them already under arrest. Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun has been arrested for helping plot the martial law troop mobilization. He was stopped from taking his own life inside the prison cell where he is being held.
In the face of the crime’s gravity, the People Power Party’s top leadership, including its chairman Han Dong Hun, have all stepped down. Considered a level-headed centrist, Han’s resignation is viewed as a serious blow to the party’s image and future. A successful lawyer, it is not known if he will return to the party at some point.
Against that backdrop, the main political focus has moved to the PPP’s efforts to regain its heft in the 300-seat National Assembly, the country’s unicameral parliament, where the Democratic Party controls the majority. The populist, left-centered DP triggered a flurry of motions and resolutions blocking the Yoon government’s appointees, even state prosecutors before they could start working. Even in the middle of multiple crises immobilizing the Assembly, the Democrats are pushing for appointment of three seats now remaining vacant at the constitutional court, which is now equally balanced between liberal and conservative judges, to tilt it in their favor. Yoon’s lawyers vow they will bring the DP’s obstructionism to the attention of the court as a way of justifying his coup.
But outside the court, all attention is fixed on the Democratic Party’s continued campaign to shake the government now headed by Prime Minister Han Duk Soo, a Harvard-educated technocrat. Their argument is that the Assembly, in the absence of a chief executive, should be adequately consulted on state management. With an eye on the coming presidential election, the Democrats are whipping up a new campaign for an independent counsel investigation of President Yoon’s wife, who stands accused of corruption, illicit stock-market trading, and influence peddling.
The First Lady has been questioned already by state prosecutors, who have mostly absolved her of wrongdoing, but the Democrats refuse to accept the result, insisting that only an independent counsel, approved by the National Assembly, should investigate her. Yoon’s refusal to submit his wife for an independent probe has brought him strong public censure, prompting media criticism that he is trying to shield her from a real investigation. Attacks against her include accepting a Dior handbag from a man claiming to be her father’s friend. It turned out he was asking for a favor to renew a radio station permit. Luckily for Mrs Yoon, that request was not answered.
Perhaps an even bigger looming crisis is that of Democratic Party chairman and top leader Lee Jae Myung, who faces multiple scandals involving a variety of charges ranging from election law violation to embezzlement running into billions of Korean won involving kickbacks from housing projects he is reported to have approved while he was Seongnam City mayor. He is facing three other trials involving a businessman illegally paying North Korea US$8 million on his behalf to get him invited by the North Korean regime to help embellish his credentials as a potential presidential candidate. In the course of extensive investigations into these cases, five of his associates have committed suicide to avoid the prosecution’s questioning in what the local media have called the biggest political scandal in the country’s history.
In November court hearings, Lee was convicted on election law violations, receiving a year’s prison term which was suspended for 24 months. He can lose the right to run for office if the Supreme Court upholds that and other sentences, which is why he is trying desperately to delay any more hearings and sentencings before the coming presidential election campaigns. In the past, Lee has reportedly resorted to hunger strikes and hospitalization. With the presidential election now slated sometime next summer, he is already asking courts to postpone hearings, at least until next year’s presidential election is over. He is clearly running short of time to avoid a possible disqualification.
A former Seongnam city mayor and Kyonggi provincial governor, both of which are close to Seoul, Lee, 60, comes with a formidable reputation as a political campaign driver. In the 2022 presidential election, he came within a whisker of beating Yoon with a sweeping pledge to pay every South Korean baby and adult 1 million Korean Won (US$695.95) in cash if he were elected. He also pledged guaranteeing a basic income of twice that amount to every adult voting for him, prompting critics to label him a South Korean version of Argentine’s onetime populist dictator Juan Peron, Argentine’s former dictator. While calling for a speedy election to choose Yoon’s successor, he has asked one of the court panels trying him to postpone his hearings, so that he can focus on the election campaign.
But critics say Lee’s stand on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program remains vague and ambiguous, prompting conservative media to label him a dangerous bet as future president. In one of harshest criticisms to come from a conservative critic, Seoul Mayor Oh Se Hoon, a potential presidential candidate himself, has labeled him “an anti-capitalist, anti-business” figure. Lee strongly rejects allegations he is a leftwing sympathizer. In a recent interview with a foreign publication, Lee claimed he was a “realist,” brushing aside attacks that he is a radical. Recently, he has begun characterizing himself as a “Korean Donald Trump,” a maligned politician capable of making a spectacular political comeback.
