Overnight, with no fanfare or prior warning, the South Korean president declared martial law, claiming an emergency need to safeguard the country against anti-state agents and North Korean sympathizers. These events are still unfolding. The BBC’s live coverage is probably the most comprehensive from what I’ve seen so far. But we can evaluate at least some of the claims and try to get a handle on what’s actually going on, and what it might mean going forward.
First, President Yoon Suk Yeol’s claim is that the Democratic Party has betrayed the country. In support of those claims, he cites Democratic Party efforts to impeach several prosecutors and their rejection of his budget proposal as “anti-state behavior” and “pro-North [Korea]”. Without clear factual support, he’s also accused them of making South Korea a “drug haven”, encouraging disorder, and “undermining liberal democracy.” He argues that martial law is necessary to prevent the collapse of South Korea.
Those claims essentially divide what’s going on into two broad possibilities. Either Yoon is legitimately taking emergency actions against a government corrupted by North Korean collaborators… or this is an attempt at a palace coup.
The latter is exceedingly more likely.
For background, Yoon Suk Yeol has been one of the most authoritarian leaders in modern South Korea. He’s been accused of weaponizing the government and the police against journalists critical of his establishment. He’s elevated the far-right, both in terms of current political pundits and the historical figures he lauds. He vetoed an effort to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate both him and his wife on allegations of corruption.
And he is exceedingly unpopular. This summer, there was a petition that attracted over a million signatures calling for his impeachment. Last month, a declaration by over 3,000 professors and university researchers called on him to resign, and a second petition circulated for his impeachment — this one signed by about 1,500 South Korean Catholic priests (Yoon is Catholic). In April, Yoon’s People Power Party catastrophically underperformed in legislative elections. Although the opposition Democratic Party (and its satellite party allies) did not garner enough votes to impeach Yoon, they secured a strong majority and have been actively stymieing Yoon’s legislative aspirations. The media has declared Yoon a “lame duck” president.
Which brings us to today, and the declaration of martial law. Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung has called the action unconstitutional and called on his party to attend parliament to vote to revoke the declaration. However, Yoon has ordered police buses to block access to the parliament building; one of the orders in his martial law declaration is the immediate suspension of all “political activity”. Despite that, 190 members of parliament — including both Democratic Party and People Power Party members — convened in the assembly and voted unanimously to block the declaration of martial law.
We’re going to have to see where this goes from here. There were reports that military forces were present in the assembly prior to the vote being taken, which might suggest that the country’s security apparatus is unwilling to side with Yoon’s fairly blatant authoritarian power grab. But it’s too early to feel confident in that outcome, especially with the considerable police presence that was seemingly willing to support martial law.
This is absolutely also a preview of what our next four years are likely to have in store.
UPDATE: The Associated Press reports that the military forces present in the assembly withdrew following the vote to lift the declaration of martial law. This is good news (for everyone but Yoon) because it represents a substantial de-escalation on the part of the military. It’s still too soon to know if this is over, however.
UPDATE 2: We may not be quite done with this thing yet. Although the military has withdrawn from the grounds of the National Assembly, the BBC reports that the military has stated that it will maintain the martial law until the president lifts the order, despite parliament voting to block it. It’s not immediately clear what that means, since the armed forces clearly aren’t moving to dissolve the legislature for engaging in prohibited parliamentary activity. Nor is there any indication what Yoon’s next move is.
UPDATE 3A: We’re definitely not done with this thing yet. Adam Schwarz has reported on BlueSky that arrest warrants have been issued for Lee Jae-myung (leader of the Democratic Party), Han Dong-hoon (leader of the People Power Party), and Woo Won-shik (Speaker of the National Assembly). Schwarz also reports that armed forces have broken into the Democratic Party offices. At the moment, I can’t find independent confirmation of any of that. Also, at least two (I’m not sure about Woo) of those named people are still in the assembly building, so it’s not like the military doesn’t know where to find them if they want to. It remains very unclear at this time whether the armed forces (and police) are willing to enact Yoon’s increasingly coup-like desires or if they’re just going to continue to tread water in hopes of some sort of resolution. Striking this, at least for now. Schwarz has deleted the relevant comments, which I’m interpreting as a retraction. I was somewhat hesitant relying on a single source for claims of what was a pretty significant escalation, but Schwarz has a big enough imprint in foreign policy reporting that I thought I had to update. It seems my initial instincts on the matter may have been right after all.
UPDATE 4: The BBC is now reporting that, per the Yonhap news agency, President Yoon Suk Yeol has now committed to lifting the martial law order, although no further details are currently available. Assuming that’s accurate, it’s really good news. Except, probably, for Yoon; even if he backs down, it’s hard to imagine that he will survive an impeachment vote at this point.
UPDATE 5: And, apparently, that’s the end of it. Yoon’s cabinet met and formally lifted the martial law order. The South Korean military has stood down to normal operations. Obviously, South Korea has a lot of hard choices coming in the next few days. I’m not real familiar with Korean politics, but I can’t imagine Yoon will avoid impeachment, unless he opts to resign preemptively. I can only assume that he expected this to play out very differently, somehow.
