The South Korean Parliament voted in favor of the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is also the subject of an investigation that could lead to the death penalty.
South Korean MPs dismissed President Yoon Suk Yeol on Saturday, December 14, 2024, after his failed attempt to impose martial law and have Parliament muzzled by the army on December 3. Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the National Assembly exploded with joy when House Speaker Woo Won-shik announced the result of the vote: 204 votes for impeachment, 85 against, three abstentions. and eight invalid ballots.
The impeachment motion needed to receive at least 200 votes out of 300 to pass. The opposition, which has 192 deputies, therefore succeeded in switching 12 of the 108 elected representatives from the People's Power Party (PPP), Yoon Suk Yeol's formation, to its camp. The president is now suspended, awaiting validation of his dismissal by the Constitutional Court within 180 days. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo takes over as interim minister.
The European Union called in a statement Saturday for a “rapid and orderly resolution to the current political crisis, in accordance with the Korean Constitution.” “This is a victory for the people and for democracy,” said Park Chan-dae, the leader of the deputies of the Democratic Party, the main opposition force. Yoon Suk Yeol “has become a president that citizens can no longer accept. He has completely betrayed the values of conservatism, undermining the very foundation of our ideology”, reacted one of the PPP deputies who voted for the impeachment, Kim Sangwook , on the television channel JTBC.
A “clear violation of the Constitution”
The imposition of martial law “is a clear violation of the Constitution and a serious violation of the law,” Park Chan-dae declared from the podium before the vote. “Yoon Suk Yeol is the mastermind of this rebellion.” On December 7, a first motion for dismissal failed, most of the PPP deputies having left the chamber to prevent the quorum from being reached. When the result of the vote was announced on Saturday afternoon, the approximately 200,000 demonstrators gathered in front of the National Assembly burst into joy, dancing to the sound of deafening K-pop, sometimes embracing each other in tears and waving glow sticks.
“Isn’t it amazing that we, the people, have achieved all this together?” exclaimed Choi Jung-ha, a 52-year-old protester. Around 30,000 Yoon Suk Yeol supporters, according to police, gathered in central Seoul, singing patriotic songs and waving South Korean and American flags. “I am deeply frustrated,” the ousted president said on television, confirming that he would now “step aside for a period of time.”
The president targeted by an investigation for “rebellion”, he risks the death penalty
The Constitutional Court has six months to confirm or overturn Parliament's decision. If the impeachment is validated, a presidential election will take place within 60 days. The President of the Court, Moon Hyung-bae, promised “a rapid and fair procedure”. Yoon Suk Yeol, 63, is the third president in the history of South Korea to be impeached by Parliament, after Park Geun-hye in 2017 and Roh Moo-hyun in 2004. The latter, however, saw his impeachment invalidated by the Constitutional Court two months after its adoption by the deputies.
Yoon Suk Yeol's troubles aren't over. The deposed president is the target of a criminal investigation for “rebellion”, a crime theoretically punishable by death, and is prohibited from leaving the country. On Friday, prosecutors announced the arrest of the head of Seoul's military command, and a court issued arrest warrants for the heads of the national police and Seoul police, citing a “risk of destruction of evidence.” .
Former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, considered the person who pushed the president to impose martial law, was the first to be arrested on December 8. He attempted suicide two days later in detention.
Yoon Suk Yeol stunned South Korea on the night of December 3 to 4 by establishing martial law, a first in more than four decades in the country, and sending the army to Parliament to try to prevent MPs from meet. According to subsequent testimony, before the deputies, of several senior military and police officials, the president had also ordered the arrest of the leaders of the main political parties, including his own. In a hemicycle surrounded by special forces, the parliamentarians still managed to hold an emergency session while their assistants blocked the doors with tables and sofas, and to vote on a text calling for the abolition of martial law. .
The president had been constitutionally obliged to obey, and the soldiers had returned to their barracks. Yoon Suk Yeol, elected president in 2022, justified his coup by his desire to “protect liberal South Korea from the threats posed by North Korean communist forces and eliminate elements hostile to the state”, accusing the Parliament dominated by the opposition to torpedo all its initiatives and block the country.
