South Korea’s president is impeached for a martial law declaration

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korean lawmakers voted Saturday to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed attempt to impose martial law that plunged the East Asian democracy and key U.S. ally into chaos.

The vote was 204 in favor to 85 against, with three abstentions and eight votes ruled invalid. All 300 lawmakers in the unicameral National Assembly voted on the proposal, which required a two-thirds majority to pass.

“Dear people, go now and enjoy the year-end celebrations,” said Woo Won-sik, the speaker of the National Assembly, after the motion was passed.

The motion ruled that Yoon’s declaration of martial law was unconstitutional and illegal because there was no indication of a national emergency and he neglected to follow procedural rules such as notifying the National Assembly in advance.

Supporters of the proposal included members of Yoon’s ruling People Power Party (PPP), whose boycott of an earlier impeachment vote had caused it to fail. Although the opposition controls parliament, it holds only 192 seats and needed the support of at least eight PPP lawmakers to impeach Yoon.

Park Chan-dae, floor leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, said the vote was “a triumph for the people and democracy.”

“This is just the beginning,” he said. “We will conduct a thorough investigation of people involved in martial law.”

After the vote, Yoon was immediately suspended from government duties, with Prime Minister Han Duck-soo acting as acting president. The PPP had previously said that Yoon was already effectively suspended from service and that it was working with Han to manage state affairs.

“I will do my best in the stable governance of our country,” Han told reporters after the impeachment vote.

He may also face impeachment over his alleged role in the martial law declaration.

The presidential office confirmed to NBC News on Saturday that Yoon was in the presidential residence, where he will remain pending a ruling by the Constitutional Court, which has six months to decide whether to uphold the impeachment motion.

There have been widespread calls for Yoon to step down since he declared a state of emergency last week. The short-lived order, which Yoon lifted hours after lawmakers voted unanimously to reject it, banned all political activity and censored the news media.

Yoon, 63, who once served as the country’s chief prosecutor, is barred from traveling abroad as he faces investigation on possible sedition charges. The police tried unsuccessfully to raid his office on Wednesday, where they were blocked by security personnel.

Yoon, who took office in 2022 for a single five-year term, has struggled to advance his agenda in the opposition-controlled parliament, and the martial law declaration has only further eroded his public support. A Gallup Korea poll released Friday showed Yoon’s approval rating at a record low of 11%. This is written by the news agency Yonhapdown from 13% a week earlier.

Support for Yoon’s impeachment had grown even within his conservative PPP.

“All we all have to think about today is our country South Korea and the people of South Korea,” PPP leader Han Dong-hoon told reporters before lawmakers gathered for the vote.

Newly elected PPP floor leader Kweon Seong-dong, a veteran politician close to Yoon, had said the party remained formally opposed to the impeachment.

In Seoul, the capital, a large crowd of protesters gathered ahead of the vote in front of the National Assembly, despite the chilly weather.

Yoon’s declaration of martial law has deeply shaken South Korea, which spent decades under military-authoritarian rule.

In the hours after he announced it on Dec. 3, “I thought that if the country wasn’t stable, my dream could be crushed right away, no matter how well I did in the exam and prepared for my dreams,” Park Geun- ha, a member of the Korean University Students’ Progressive Alliance, said in a speech at a meeting ahead of the vote on Saturday.

“So we call for President Yoon’s immediate impeachment and arrest.”

Supporters of the protesters, many of whom carried K-pop light sticks, pre-ordered food for them. K-pop singer-songwriter IU said she provided 200 pieces of bread, 100 rice cakes, 200 bowls of rice soup and oxtail soup, and 200 drinks so rally participants could “warm up a bit.”

A dedicated website helped protesters keep track of where to find bathrooms as well as free food and drinks, while a bus was provided for parents who needed a place to change their children’s nappies.

Others rallied in support of Yoon, and pro-Yoon protester Lee Gang-san said nearly a million people were at his event. NBC News was unable to independently confirm this figure.

“We fear that if President Yoon is impeached, the opposition will gain more power,” he told NBC News by phone.

Some South Koreans expressed relief after the impeachment vote, saying the declaration of martial law could have hurt the world’s 10th largest economy.

“I was so worried that the president might do something so unexpected and unexpected again if he continues and ruin our business sentiments even more,” said Hyo-won Park, who owns a car rental business in Seoul.

Advocacy group Humans Rights Watch said South Koreans had “stood up and fought to protect their democracy and human rights.”

– The impeachment case highlights how checks and balances are crucial to stopping abuse of power and supporting the rule of law, said Deputy Director for Asia, Simon Henderson.

A number of people have already been arrested in connection with the martial law declaration, including former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, the commissioner of the National Police Agency and the chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.

Although Yoon has twice apologized for the “anxiety” his order caused the public, he vowed to “fight to the end” in a defiant speech Thursday, accusing the opposition of paralyzing the government to the point where he believed it declared martial law was. his only choice.

Lee Jae-myung, head of the Democratic Party, said Friday that Yoon’s speech was “a declaration of war against the people.”

“Legal proceedings are the fastest and surest way to end the crisis,” said Lee, who narrowly lost to Yoon in the 2022 presidential election.

He urged PPP lawmakers to vote for the second impeachment, saying “history will remember and record your choice.”

Lee also thanked the United States and allied countries “for their consistent support” for democracy in South Korea, which hosts nearly 30,000 American troops.

South Korea’s foreign minister, Cho Tae-yul, told lawmakers on Friday that he would put “every effort into restoring trust in international relations and maintaining the alliance between South Korea and the United States.”

Yoon’s impeachment is not the end of South Korea’s political turmoil, said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

“It’s not even the beginning of the end, which will ultimately involve electing a new president,” he said.

Lee, who is favored to win an election to replace Yoon, is also in legal jeopardy, with a ruling in the appeals case and several other rulings that could disqualify him from office, Easley said.

Communist-ruled North Korea has seized on the political turmoil in the South, highlighting protests “demanding the impeachment of the puppet Yoon Suk Yeol regime” in a second day of state media coverage on Thursday after failing to report on the martial law declaration for a week. The two Koreas remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

Without providing evidence, Yoon, who takes a harder line on North Korea than his Democratic predecessor, had accused the opposition of sympathizing with the nuclear-armed state and cited it as justification for the martial law declaration when he announced it.

In his speech on Thursday, Yoon said without evidence that North Korea had hacked into South Korea’s National Election Commission last year, revealing security issues that he said called into question the integrity of the results of April’s general election, which the liberal opposition won in a landslide.

Kim Yong-bin, the commission’s secretary-general, said Friday there was no evidence of electoral fraud or that its system was hacked, and said all votes are cast by paper ballots.

“It is impossible to commit electoral fraud with our system,” he said.

Stella Kim reported from Seoul, South Korea, and Jennifer Jett from Hong Kong.