In South Korea, is there a plan to resist tyranny?

On Saturday evening, a week and a half after South Korea’s President, Yoon Suk-yeol, declared martial law and deployed war-ready soldiers against his country’s citizens and lawmakers, the National Assembly voted to remove him from power. Two-thirds of the legislature — including at least a dozen members from Yoon’s party — voted for impeachment, as more than a million Koreans surrounded the parliamentary complex in Seoul, chanting and singing K-pop, and waving glow sticks and banners. (“Yeon Suk-yeol was arrested for treason!”) ​​in the bitter cold. “Historically, politics has followed the public square,” said Li Changjun, an automaker and union organizer who traveled from another province to attend the demonstration. “This was a dangerous situation, but I believe in Korean democracy and the basic functioning of the system.”

The impeachment proceedings are now referred to the Constitutional Court, which may take several months to review them and issue a final decision. “Even though I am stuck now, I will never give up,” Yoon said in a televised speech. Since taking office in 2022, Yoon has faced one controversy after another. As a presidential candidate for the People Power Party, he appealed to young male voters by promising to dissolve the ministry that was created in the late 1990s to improve the status of women in Korean society. He moved the president’s office to the Defense Ministry headquarters and called for a possible “preemptive strike” if North Korea fired missiles toward the South. As president, he oversaw the repeated prosecution of Lee Jae-myung, his main opponent in the Democratic Party; His appointees were blamed when more than one hundred and fifty people were killed in a mob crush on Halloween in 2022. He and his wife have been accused of receiving favors from a pollster and interfering in local elections, which they deny. The majority of Koreans were demanding Yoon’s dismissal before the recent failed self-coup. In the coming days, celebrations and protests will undoubtedly continue. Those of us who live in other countries where democracy feels threatened should also take notice.

When I first wrote about the events of December 3rd – Yoon’s late-night imposition of martial law, which he justified with disingenuous references to threats from North Korea and other “anti-state forces”, and its rapid reversal, by order of the Legislative Council A few hours later, the overwhelming impression among the Koreans I interviewed was one of utter shock. Older generations lived under the violent military dictatorships of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and young people recognize this legacy. (Korean novelist Han Kang explores the postwar period in some of her books; her recent Nobel Prize win has revived discussions about this period.) Even Yoon’s harshest critics could not have imagined that he would go this far. We have since learned that Yoon, a former prosecutor, had been outlining the plan with military advisers for several weeks; that he ordered raids on government offices, as well as sending troops to shut down the National Assembly (a failed attempt to prevent lawmakers from voting to repeal the decree, according to the Constitution); He allowed the arrest of a judge, a journalist, opposition politicians, and even the head of his party.

In the end, the army chose not to obey these orders: it made no arrests and did not fully conduct raids. They did not use serious force on anyone trying to enter the National Assembly. Some soldiers, when sent to ransack an office overseeing elections, ate instant ramen at a convenience store instead. Three days later, Yoon apologized for the incident, then changed his mind, declaring that the opposition was “on the rampage” and, despite growing calls for him to step down, he would “stand firm” and “fight to the end.” That is, in 2027, when his only five-year term ends. Many of his advisors and members of his government resigned. Defense and law enforcement officials were arrested for their roles in the chaos. One of them tried to kill himself. Senior leaders in Yun’s party resigned, leaving him unable to function. “We are fortunate that we were able to resolve this crisis peacefully,” Lee Cha Ji-ho, a Democratic Party lawmaker, said after the vote to impeach Yoon. “From the beginning, it was the citizens who came out and prevented the soldiers from entering the National Assembly, and the soldiers and police were acting as citizens as well. “There was a common understanding that we cannot allow this to happen, and we must resist.”

On Saturday, Prime Minister Han Dak-soo, who is now acting president, pledged to “stabilize the confusion in state affairs and allow people to return to their precious daily lives.” Han, who was notified of Yoon’s intention to declare martial law and failed to stop it, appears to be as popular as the president – whose approval rating is about 11 percent – but, unlike Yoon, he is a career politician and a well-known figure. Quantity at the moment of disturbance. One of his first priorities may be to fill three empty seats on the Constitutional Court; Only six of the nine justices are currently in office, and six votes are needed to confirm legislative accountability. (Under Korean law, the National Assembly, the President, and the Chief Justice are each responsible for recommending three judges, appointed by the president. The three seats nominated by the legislature have been vacant since October, when these judges retired.) The evidence must be heard and a decision must be made over whether to fire or reinstate Yoon within the next 180 days. If he is removed, the country will hold early elections to choose a new president.

South Korea has been here before, sort of. In 2004, the National Assembly brought corruption charges against liberal President Roh Moo-hyun, which the Constitutional Court ultimately rejected as grounds for his impeachment. Then, in 2016, conservative President Park Geun-hye was impeached after weeks of demonstrations in response to a series of scandals: she had failed to respond when the Sewol ferry was sinking, in an accident that killed hundreds of passengers, she had colluded in bribery and shared secret documents with… A counselor is like a shaman. The court upheld Park’s impeachment. The Roh and Park cases have been criticized for being politically motivated. The allegations against Yoon — of violating the constitution and a separate law restricting the imposition of martial law in emergency situations — arguably amount to “acts of criminal treason,” says Baek Tae-ung, a visiting scholar at Korea University and a professor of law at Korea University. Hawaii in Manoa told me. “People realize that he directly targeted the heart of democracy, so the gravity of this protest and anger is much greater than what we saw under President Park.” (As a student activist in com. minjung (The 1980s movement that turned South Korea into a democracy led to Paek being imprisoned.)

Earlier this week, a poll showed that 75% of participants supported Yoon’s impeachment. Marches, signature campaigns, and online forums suggest something of a consensus across gender, age, class, and political affiliation. The large presence of young women was particularly striking. According to Laura Gamboa, a political scientist at the University of Notre Dame and author of “Resistance to decline“, which explores strategies used to oppose authoritarian shifts in Colombia, Venezuela and other countries, public engagement is essential. “If the narrative around impeachment is weak — for example, with Donald Trump — and impeachment fails, that might help a leader deliver Himself as a martyr.” “If the narrative is strong, has strong democratic justifications, and succeeds, that is a good way to stop democratic backsliding. In the South Korean context, the narrative that Yoon actually committed a punishable crime is fairly strong.

Can democracy be strong and fragile at the same time? One man succeeded in turning a nation of 52 million back toward tyranny. However, ordinary Koreans resisted this resistance, and a range of institutional supports held firm. Lawmakers scaled the walls of the National Assembly to vote against the martial law decree, Yoon was impeached, and late Saturday night, the Constitutional Court convened to begin reviewing the decree. Taken together, this all amounts to saving democracy in South Korea, at least for now. “Constitutional courts, federalism, international institutions — almost anything, under the right circumstances, can stand in the way of the consolidation of authoritarian power,” Mark Tushnet of Harvard Law School told me. “The problem is you never know which one will work.” In both South Korea and the United States, for example, a civilian—the president—controls the military, which is intended to keep the armed forces in check. “Then someone like Yoon comes along,” Tushnet explained, who is willing to use the military for an illegal purpose. Or Trump “who wanted to send troops on January 6th.” Having a civilian commander in chief in those cases was actually bad for democracy. The fact that no violence broke out during the short-lived martial law period Yoon imposed on December 3 was mostly just luck.

That night, Ahn Jue-ryong, spokesman for the Democratic Party, quarreled with a special forces soldier outside the National Assembly. At one point, she grabbed the end of his gun and shouted in a casual voice, as if addressing her younger brother, “Aren’t you embarrassed? Aren’t you embarrassed?” Pike, a law professor and former opposition figure, wondered what Americans might be willing to do if similar violations of democracy and human rights occurred during Trump’s second term. “I hope people in the United States will see what is happening in Korea,” he told me hours before he headed to protest in front of the National Assembly. “We have to watch what happens here, and what the United States could face.” ♦