An earlier vote to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol did not pass because his party’s lawmakers boycotted the process, but some of them have since expressed willingness to support his impeachment.
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean lawmakers are ready to vote for the second time on Saturday to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol due to his failed attempt to impose martial law and more of his allied lawmakers are supporting the motion after he defended his actions.
Yoon has been under pressure to resign since he declared emergency martial law last week, leading to turmoil in the East Asian democracy and key US partner. The order which Yoon rescinded shortly after the legislators voted 180 to 1 against it suspended all political activity and restricted freedom of the press.
Yoon, 63, who once worked as the country’s chief prosecutor, cannot travel abroad since he is under investigation for possible rebellion. Police attempted but failed on Wednesday to arrest him at his office when they were repulsed by security personnel.
Meanwhile, Yoon’s ruling People Power Party (PPP) claims that he is effectively on leave from work and that it is collaborating with PM Han Duck-soo to govern the world’s 10th-largest economy.
Yoon, who was elected in 2022 for a single five-year term, has faced difficulties in pushing his initiatives in the parliament controlled by the opposition, and the declaration of martial law does not help him to gain more support among the population. According to a Gallup Korea poll published on Friday, Yoon’s approval rating has hit an all-time low of 11%, the Yonhap news agency said, down from 13% a week ago.
Although Yoon has apologized twice for the “anxiety” his order gave the public, he promised to “fight to the end” in a defiant speech on Thursday, in which he accused the opposition of immobilizing the government to the point that he felt like declaring martial law.
The leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, Lee Jae-myung, described Yoon’s speech as “a declaration of war against the people” on Friday.
“Impeachment is the fastest and most effective way to solve the crisis,” Lee, Yoon’s main rival in the 2022 presidential elections, said.
He encouraged PPP members of parliament to support the second impeachment motion stating “history will note and write your decision.”
Lee also thanked the United States and allied countries “for their continued support” of democracy in South Korea, which hosts almost 30,000 American troops and was under military-authoritarian rule for decades.
The vote is expected to happen on Saturday at around 4 pm local time, a week after an earlier impeachment motion was defeated due to the PPP lawmakers’ boycott of the vote.
The new impeachment motion was filed late Thursday by six opposition parties. While the opposition has the majority in the parliament, they are still eight short of the 200 that would be required to pass the bill.
Since the first vote was negative, at least seven members of the PPP have stated that they will vote for impeachment, which is only one vote away from passing.
If Yoon is impeached, the case will go to the Constitutional Court and the Constitutional Court has six months to decide whether to accept the impeachment motion or not.
North Korea has seized on the political crisis in the South, with state media reporting on protests “demanding the impeachment of the puppet Yoon Suk Yeol regime” for a second day on Thursday after not mentioning the martial law declaration for a week.
Lacking substantiation, Yoon, who is more confrontational towards North Korea than his Democratic predecessor, had accused the opposition of siding with the nuclear-armed state, which he used as a reason for the martial law declaration when he declared it in a late-night speech on December 3.
South Korea’s Yoon claimed in a speech on Thursday that North Korea had hacked into the country’s National Election Commission last year and revealed security flaws which he said cast doubt on the outcome of the parliamentary election held in April where the liberal opposition scored a massive victory.
Kim Yong-bin, the commission’s secretary general said on Friday that there was no evidence of election fraud or that its system was hacked, all votes are on paper ballots.
“I can tell you that it is impossible to rig an election with this system,” he said.
The leader of Yoon’s party seemed to change his position after Yoon’s speech on Thursday and said that the president must be impeached.
“The speech was a rationalization of this situation and de facto confession that he has committed rebellion,” PPP leader Han Dong-hoon said. “I would like to suggest that PPP should adopt voting for the impeachment as our party policy.”
Stella Kim contributed to the story from Seoul, South Korea, while Jennifer Jett from Hong Kong.
