Martial Law Shock: Pressure Mounts On South Korea’s President, Yoon Suk Yeol

• As Opposition parties submit impeachment motion to Parliament

South Korean opposition parties said they have submitted a motion to impeach the president, Yoon Suk Yeol, over his short-lived declaration of martial law.

Yoon’s shock bid to put South Korea under martial law for the first time in over four decades, unfortunately, backfired with growing calls within the ruling as well as opposition parties for him to resign or face impeachment.

Representatives for six opposition parties, including the main Democratic party said on Wednesday; “We’ve submitted an impeachment motion prepared urgently”, adding they would discuss when to put it to a vote, but it could come as soon as Friday.

Earlier on Wednesday, Yoon faced calls to quit immediately or face impeachment after an attempt to bring in martial law triggered protests and political condemnation. The liberal opposition Democratic party, which holds a majority in the 300-seat parliament, said its lawmakers had decided to call on Yoon to stand down straight away or they would take steps to impeach him.

“President Yoon Suk Yeol’s martial law declaration was a clear violation of the constitution. It didn’t abide by any requirements to declare it,” the Democratic Party said in a statement. “His martial law declaration was originally invalid and a grave violation of the constitution. It was a grave act of rebellion and provides perfect grounds for his impeachment.”

In a related development on Wednesday, Defence Minister Kim Yong-hyun offered his resignation, while simultaneously facing an impeachment motion from the Democratic Party. If Yoon accepts Kim’s resignation before parliament votes, the Defence Minister would no longer be subject to the impeachment process.

Yoon’s shock bid to impose South Korea’s first state of martial law in over four decades plunged the country into the deepest turmoil in its modern democratic history and caught its close allies around the world off guard.

The US, which currently stations nearly 30,000 troops in South Korea to protect it from the nuclear-armed North, voiced deep concern at the declaration, then relief that martial law was over.

The US indefinitely postponed meetings of the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG), a signature Yoon effort aimed at having South Korea play a greater role in allied planning for potential nuclear war on the peninsula.

The martial law declaration also cast doubt on a possible visit next week by the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin.

The dramatic developments have left the future of Yoon, a conservative politician and former star public prosecutor who was elected president in 2022, in serious jeopardy.

South Korea’s main opposition party, whose lawmakers jumped fences and tussled with security forces so they could vote to overturn the law, earlier called Yoon’s move an attempted “insurrection”.

The nation’s largest umbrella labour union also called an “indefinite general strike” until Yoon resigned. Meanwhile, the leader of Yoon’s own ruling People Power party, Han Dong-hoon, described the attempt as “tragic” while calling for those involved to be held accountable.

Opposition parties together control 192 seats in the 300-seat parliament, so would need lawmakers from Yoon’s party to join them to attain the required two-thirds majority in the legislature for impeachment.

If the national assembly votes to impeach Yoon, the decision must then be upheld by at least six out of nine judges in the constitutional court. If he is removed from office, Yoon would become only the second president of South Korea since it became a democracy to have met that fate.

The other was Park Geun-hye, who was removed in 2017. Ironically, Yoon, the then-prosecutor general, led the corruption case that precipitated Park’s downfall.

Candlelight vigils were being held in major cities nationwide on Wednesday evening, echoing the massive protests that led to Park’s impeachment in 2016-17.