What you need to know about a chaotic 24 hours in Korean politics

It’s been a contentious 24 hours in South Korean politics since impeached President Yoon Seok-yeol narrowly avoided arrest for rebellion on Friday, one month after martial law was declared.

This is the latest development in a month-long political meltdown that has not only thrown South Korean politics into turmoil but also exposed the country’s deep political polarization. The most dramatic demonstration of the dueling protests is between the movement calling for Mr. Yoon’s ouster and arrest, and the smaller but still ongoing movement. A voice trying to protect him.

The crisis escalated on Friday when officials from the CIO declared martial law on December 3 and attempted to break into Yun’s mansion to arrest him on suspicion of attempting a self-coup. A dramatic new development has taken place. Many South Koreans took to the streets demanding arrests, while protesters blocked roads leading to the presidential palace and took to social media to claim the arrests were illegal.

CIO officials ultimately stopped detaining Yun after the presidential guard, backed by military personnel, blocked his access to the palace.

According to a statement from the CIO, “It has been determined that the execution of today’s arrest warrant is virtually impossible due to the continued stalemate.” “Due to concerns for the safety of staff at the scene, we have decided to halt the execution.”

But that doesn’t mean Mr. Yoon’s problems are over. The case against him is ongoing in South Korea’s Constitutional Court, which will ultimately decide whether impeachment is successful and Yoon is permanently removed from power, but the arrest warrant is pending until Monday. Still valid. If he is arrested, he would be the first sitting South Korean president to be arrested. (Mr. Yoon has not yet been removed from office, but the acting president has been carrying out his duties since the National Assembly’s impeachment resolution on December 14.)

The intensity and instability of the past month means South Korea has no clear sense of what will happen next. But as Friday’s unrest underscored, whatever the fate of Mr. Yun’s political career, the future will likely involve a combination of the conservative People’s Power Party, led by Mr. Yun, and the more liberal Democratic Party. It will likely revolve around the division between the country’s two major political parties.

When Yoon declared martial law, he was in the second year of his five-year term (South Korean presidents only serve one term). His approval rating fell below 20% during his time in office as his political agenda faltered in the National Assembly, South Korea’s legislative body, which is controlled by the center-left Democratic Party.

Celeste Arrington, a professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Studies and director of the George Washington Korea Institute, said Yoon is “certainly unpopular and frustrated by his inability to govern.”

“Since Mr. Yun is the first president in democratic South Korea to rule without a parliamentary majority, all of his legislative efforts have been blocked by the National Assembly, which is completely opposed to Mr. Yun’s ideas,” Arrington said. said. He said this in an interview with Vox in December.

Such dissatisfaction appears to have contributed to Yun’s decision to declare martial law. Yun’s first announcement of martial law was in a televised statement in which he claimed without evidence that the government’s opposition parties were in the midst of an “insurrection” and were “trying to overthrow a free society.” Democracy. ”

The move to declare martial law, the first in South Korea since 1980, shocked the Korean people and the world, including Yoon’s political opponents and allies alike.

In theory, South Korea’s constitution allows the president to declare martial law under certain “national emergencies,” but Yoon appears to have exceeded that authority, calling in the military to prevent the National Assembly from convening. I have also been dispatched. Ultimately, Congress unanimously rejected martial law after some members were forced to scale a wall to enter the Capitol.

Yoon’s declaration was almost universally unpopular in South Korea, reigniting concerns about the country’s repressive 20th-century dictatorship, which has been subject to mass demonstrations demanding democracy and a direct presidential election. It finally came to an end in the 1980s. Decades later, thousands of South Koreans gathered to protest Yoon’s move and call for his ouster.

Even after Yoon’s term ends, South Korea’s political problems will not be resolved.

The past month has been unusual for South Korean politics, but it has also highlighted the underlying tensions in politics in a country characterized in recent years by a high degree of polarization between the two major political parties and their supporters. points out.

“Throughout each election over the past few years, elections have swung from very conservative to very liberal,” said Emma Whitmire, senior program officer at the Asia Society Policy Institute. It’s become very conservative these days,” Emma Whitmire, senior program officer at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told Box.

Both progressives and conservatives claim to protect democracy. But experts say conservatives are primarily concerned about maintaining the stability of governments that happen to be democracies, rather than ensuring that democratic institutions are preserved and used. Ta.

According to Arrington, the conservative vision, that of Yun’s party and its supporters, is rooted in a post-Cold War concept of democracy as a counterweight to communism and to ensure the democracy of democracy. Rather than anything, it is broadly focused on “ensuring that no one threatens the nation.” The principles remain the same.

Joanne Cho, a professor of Korean politics at Wesleyan University, told Vox that this political faction was “heavily influenced by government propaganda about anti-communism and the threat from North Korea.” In their view, “anyone who is trying to protest against the government is a North Korean spy. They are pro-communist.”

In contrast, Arrington said South Korean Democratic Party supporters grew up during the democracy movement of the 1970s and 1980s, which provided political leadership that has been passed down to younger generations.

“I think the debates and concerns over stability have to do with polarization. It’s both at the elite level and the popular level,” Cho said. “I think it first became clear with (former President Park Geun-hye’s) impeachment. It became more obvious at the public level as the pro-impeachment and anti-impeachment protests continued.”

At the popular level, polarization is expressed through South Korea’s strong protest culture. At an elite level, this is similar to the legislative challenges Yun experienced in the Democratic Party-led Congress.

Whitmire said Yun’s impeachment was in addition to that of Park, who was impeached in December 2016 and removed from office the following year, despite the fact that Yun’s actions were also highly unpopular. It is said that it caused

“There’s starting to be a sense that (impeachment was one thing) was one thing, but now it’s happening over and over again,” Whitmire said. “Whoever the next president is, liberal or conservative, they will face many of the same challenges from opposition parties who want to impeach them for good reasons, or perhaps for more petty or smaller allegations. Will it be?” ”

Confusion and a sense of helplessness are fueling distrust in the government, but experts say there is no clear path to reform that would re-emerge political compromise, which may not bode well for the future. states.

According to Whitmire, “The pendulum seems to have swung far in both directions, (and) there’s no longer really a middle ground for both sides to work together.”