On Friday, January 3, agents from the Corruption Office (CIO) attempted to arrest President Yoon Suk-Yeol, who was under investigation for rebellion following his attempted coup on the night of January 3. December. However, 200 members of President Yoon’s bodyguards, consisting of soldiers and security agents, stopped them inside the villa. Meanwhile, hundreds of pro-Yoon activists supported the president during the failed arrest attempt, which lasted six hours. The KCTU, the Korean trade union, also called for a rally to obtain Yoon’s arrest. Pro and anti-Yoon demonstrators have been facing each other in front of the ousted president’s residence for more than a week now.
While the impeachment motion was passed by the National Assembly 11 days after the failed coup attempt, it has not yet been made effective by the vote of the Constitutional Court. Indeed, two thirds of the votes of the Court being necessary to make the dismissal effective, as only 6 of the 9 positions are occupied a unanimous vote of all the members is required.
Pretending a threat to his security, Yoon did not appear at the first session of the impeachment trial which was to be held this Tuesday, January 14. Yoon’s resistance to the judicial process as well as the standoff between Yoon’s People’s Party (PP) and the Democratic opposition (which voted to impeach interim President Han Duck-soo on December 26 continued to his refusal to appoint the three judges proposed by the opposition party) reinforces the instability of the regime, while Yoon mobilizes his electoral base around anti-institution rhetoric to capitalize on the significant rejection by the population of the corruption of the political class Korean.
Thus, as Joonseok, activist of March To Socialism (MTS), analyzes: “ Although Yoon was impeached through parliament, the mass movement played a crucial role in overturning martial law, allowing parliament to lift martial law two hours after his declaration. Supported by the thousands of workers and residents who gathered in front of the Assembly and across the country, the motion was widely acclaimed. Since December 7, the rallies have been the decisive force that allowed the impeachment motion to be adopted in parliament, and remain the most crucial data in the course of events.
-The role of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) has so far been contradictory, and very limited compared to its true potential. The general strike announced on the night of December 4 was in reality poorly attended, but it gained momentum in the following days, with an average of between 50,000 and 100,000 strikers, mainly in the metallurgical and industrial sectors. railway. In the demonstrations, the Confederation plays a leading role, in particular by making a strong impression on unorganized workers, through its ability to resist police repression and to organize the rallies. However, the Confederation is far from deploying its full potential, preparing a real strike which could lead to a mass uprising. But this point is not on the agenda of the meetings of the leadership of the Confederation or among the activists at its base.”
The radicalization of mobilization from below is made all the more urgent as Yoon’s coup attempt has revived the specter of military dictatorship that had never really left the Korean political landscape. The hundreds of pro-Yoon demonstrators made up of evangelists and far-right influencers gathered for several days in front of the failed dictator’s home are the most advanced expression of a fringe radicalized towards the far right while the arrival of Donald Trump at the White House risks complicating the already precarious political and economic relations that South Korea maintains with North Korea and China.
The future of South Korea therefore remains uncertain and depends on the capacity of the advanced sectors of Korean workers, concentrated in the metallurgical and railway sectors, to impose on the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions a political general strike for the dismissal and trial of Yoon and his accomplices.
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