SEOUL, South Korea – South Korean lawmakers on Saturday voted to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed martial law bid, with the opposition declaring a “victory of the people”.
The vote took place as hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Seoul in rival rallies for and against Yoon, who launched a failed attempt to impose martial law on December 3.
The impeachment motion was carried after at least 12 members of Yoon’s People Power Party joined the opposition parties, which control 192 seats in the 300-member national assembly, clearing the two-thirds threshold needed for impeachment.
A total of 204 lawmakers voted to impeach the president on allegations of insurrection and 85 voted against. Three abstained, with eight votes nullified.
With the impeachment, Yoon has been suspended from office while South Korea’s Constitutional Court deliberates on the vote.
Prime Minister Han Duck-soo is now the nation’s interim leader.
Han promised his utmost efforts to ensure stability after Yoon’s impeachment.
“I will give all my strength and efforts to stabilize the government,” Han told reporters.
The court now has 180 days to rule on Yoon’s future.
“Although I am stopping for now, the journey I have walked with the people over the past two and a half years toward the future must never come to a halt. I will never give up,” Yoon said.
Regarded as a tough political survivor but increasingly isolated, he has been dogged by personal scandals and strife, an unyielding opposition and rifts within his own party.
Protesters backing Yoon’s impeachment leapt for joy near parliament at the news and waved colorful LED sticks as music pumped out. By contrast, a rally of Yoon supporters quickly emptied following the news.
Opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung told protesters near parliament that they should fight together so Yoon was removed as quickly as possible.
“You, the people, made it. You are writing a new history,” he told the jubilant crowds, who had braved subfreezing temperatures to attend the rally.
A Seoul police official earlier told AFP at least 200,000 people had massed outside parliament in support of removing the president.
On the other side of Seoul near Gwanghwamun square, police estimated 30,000 had rallied in support of Yoon, blasting patriotic songs and waving South Korean and American flags.
“Yoon had no choice but to declare martial law. I approve of every decision he has made as president,” supporter Choi Hee-sun, 62, told AFP before the vote.
The South Korean president has vowed to fight on and doubled down on unsubstantiated claims the opposition is in league with the country’s communist foes.
‘Defend democracy’
The main opposition Democratic Party said on Saturday ahead of the vote that impeachment was the “only way” to “safeguard the Constitution, the rule of law, democracy and South Korea’s future”.
“We can no longer endure Yoon’s madness,” spokeswoman Hwang Jung-a said.
At the rally outside parliament supporting impeachment, volunteers gave out free hand warmers on Saturday morning to fight the sub-zero temperatures, as well as coffee and food.
K-pop singer Yuri of the band Girl’s Generation — whose song “Into the New World” has become a protest anthem — said she had pre-paid for food for fans attending the demonstration.
“Stay safe and take care of your health!” she said on a superfan chat platform.
One protester said she had rented a bus so parents at the rally would have a place to change diapers and feed their babies.
Another said they had initially planned to spend their Saturday hiking.
“But I came here instead to support my fellow citizens,” Kim Deuk-yun, 58, told AFP.
Insurrection claims
If the Constitutional Court backs his removal, Yoon would become the second president in South Korean history to be successfully impeached.
But there is also precedent for the court to block impeachment. In 2004, then-president Roh Moo-hyun was removed by parliament for alleged election law violations and incompetence, but the Constitutional Court later reinstated him.
The court currently only has six judges, meaning their decision must be unanimous.
And should the vote fail, Yoon could still face “legal responsibility” for the martial law bid, Kim Hyun-jung, a researcher at the Korea University Institute of Law, told AFP.
“This is clearly an act of insurrection,” she said.
“Even if the impeachment motion does not pass, the president’s legal responsibilities under the Criminal Code… cannot be avoided.”
Yoon remained unapologetic and defiant as the fallout from his disastrous martial law declaration deepened and an investigation into his inner circle has widened.
His approval rating — never very high — plummeted to 11 percent, according to a Gallup Korea poll released Friday.
The same poll showed that 75 percent supported his impeachment. — with a report from Reuters
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