Caught in a quicksand

On December 3, 2024, President Yoon Suk Yeol of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) in an unannounced speech stunned his country and the world with an attempt to impose martial law. Yoon cited budget gridlock, the impeachment of government officials, and the “trampling of the constitutional order” as his motivations, and said that the opposition-led “National Assembly has become a den of criminals and is attempting to paralyse the nation’s judicial administration.” Following the decree, Army General Park An-soo assumed command. He issued a proclamation imposing immediate and sweeping restrictions on political parties, public demonstrations, and labour organising—the very foundations of Korean democratic activism. The decree even placed all media under military control. The political leaders across the spectrum swiftly denounced the move. In an emergency late-night session all 190 present members of the 300-seat National Assembly voted to block the decree. The rejection requires the president to end martial law but does not specify a time frame for doing so. National Assembly Chairman Woo Won-sik declared the decree “invalid”.

On December 9, 2024, South Korea’s Justice Ministry banned Yoon from leaving the country until the conclusion of an investigation into alleged treason. There is mounting evidence that Yoon ordered both the military and National Intelligence Service to arrest the speaker of the National Assembly, major party leaders, several judges and even media figures. It is also alleged that the suspended president Yoon Suk Yeol authorised the military to fire their weapons if needed to enter parliament during his failed bid to impose martial law. The declaration followed a budget tussle between Yoon’s party and the opposition.

Yoon was suspended from office on December 14 after lawmakers voted to impeach him, but he can only be removed from office if this is upheld by the country’s constitutional court. The suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol refused a summon to appear for questioning on Sunday (December 29, 2024). That was the third time he had defied investigators’ demands in two weeks. A South Korean court on Tuesday (December 31) approved an arrest warrant for President Yoon Suk Yeol. It is the first time a sitting South Korean president has faced an arrest warrant, reports CNN. On Friday (January 3) morning, South Korea’s police have suspended their attempt to arrest impeached President after the officers of the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO) failed to execute the arrest warrant. They met with a “wall” of around 200 soldiers and presidential security personnel, reports BBC.

The crisis deepens

The opposition Democratic Party has called Yoon’s moves “unconstitutional” and “illegal.” The law appears to be on their side. Both the South Korean Constitution and the Martial Law Act of 2017 state that martial law – the temporary suspension of normal civilian rule – can only apply in times of severe national crisis. And even then, the National Assembly must vote to approve the emergency measure, with any attempt to interfere with the legislative body deemed unconstitutional. The country was not facing a major crisis, despite Yoon’s claims of a threat from pro-North Korean forces.

Despite the public clamouring for his removal, the impeachment motion failed in the National Assembly – needing just eight additional votes from Yoon’s party to add to the 192 opposition votes. An immediate effort to impeach the president over the attempted power grab has failed due to the boycott of the vote by Yoon’s ruling conservative People’s Power Party (PPP).

After the impeachment vote, the PPP announced an informal power-sharing agreement in which Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and PPP leader Han Dong-hoon would manage state affairs even while arranging Yoon’s “orderly resignation” at an undefined date. Critics have described this arrangement as “unconstitutional,” perhaps even a “soft coup” that transfers vast presidential authority to unelected leaders – in the South Korean system, the Prime Minister is appointed rather than elected, while Han Dong-hoon is not currently a legislator.

Within ten days of Han Dong-hoon’s appointment as the acting president following President Yoon Suk-yeol’s impeachment, South Korea’s opposition-controlled parliament voted to impeach Prime Minister Han Duck-soo. It was the first time in the country’s modern history that an impeachment motion against an acting president was put to a vote and passed in the National Assembly. According to the procedure, the impeachment motion against Han will now be submitted to the constitutional court for review, which should be completed within 180 days.

After Han’s impeachment, Minister of Economy and Finance Choi Sang-mok, who doubles as deputy prime minister for economic affairs, assumed the position of an acting presidency. Park Chan-dae, floor leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, said on Friday that Choi should appoint constitutional court justices to mitigate uncertainties during his acting tenure, reports Xinhua.

Han’s impeachment came after he officially refused to approve the appointment of three constitutional court justices who will fill vacancies on the nine-member bench for Yoon’s impeachment trial. The constitutional court typically comprises nine justices, but currently, there are only six. According to the law, at least six out of the nine justices must vote in favour of impeachment to remove a president from office. Therefore, all six existing justices must unanimously agree to impeach the president and even one dissenting vote would dismiss the motion.

Against this backdrop, the National Assembly held a plenary session on Thursday and approved the appointment of three new constitutional court justices. Han, as the acting president at that time, was supposed to formally appoint the justices, but he said that the appointment should first achieve consensus between the ruling and opposition parties, otherwise, he would postpone the appointments. The Democratic Party therefore expressed dissatisfaction with Han’s stance, spearheaded the impeachment motion against him, and pushed for the National Assembly’s vote. Now, the responsibility of appointing the constitutional court justices falls on Choi.

Long line of coups

The National Liberation Day of Korea is celebrated annually on August 15 in both South and North Korea. It commemorates the day when Korea was liberated from 35 years of Japanese colonial rule by the Allies in 1945. The day also coincides with the anniversary of the founding of South Korea in 1945.

Yoon’s martial law declaration is the latest in a long line of coups throughout Korean history. December 3 attempt to impose martial law was the first imposition of martial law in 45 years and the 17th in South Korean history. However, the legal landscape has changed since the 1980s, requiring parliamentary approval for such measures. Over the decades, South Korea has evolved from a brutal military dictatorship to a pro-business democracy. But this journey has also been bundled with controversies involving corruption, abuse of power and political vendetta.

The republic’s first president following independence from Japan after the Second World War was forced into exile by a student revolt in 1960. His successor held office for less than two years before being ousted in a coup. Park, the next authoritarian president who ruled for 18 years, was shot dead in 1979 by his own intelligence chief.

On October 17, 1972, the then-president Park Chung-hee declared martial law – dissolving the National Assembly and arresting top lawmakers in the process – and announced a revision of the constitution to be approved by referendum. The resultant Yushin Constitution, enforced on December 27, 1972, did away with direct presidential elections. Instead, a newly established National Conference for Unification would vote for the president in the people’s stead. Park made himself the chairman of the new body, which consisted largely of his followers. The Yushin Constitution also allowed Park to unilaterally enact “emergency decrees” that banned criticism of the government. The power grab allowed Park to stay in office indefinitely and skirt the legislative opposition to pass his policies. And until his assassination in 1979 by his own intelligence chief, Park maintained a tight grip on power. Soon after Park’s death, Chun Doo-hwan, an army major general, seized power in a coup and declared martial law, arresting opponents, closing universities, banning political activities and stifling the press. That was the last time martial law was declared in South Korea.

Current political system

Following the division of the Korean peninsula into a southern and a northern part at the end of the Second World War, the Republic of Korea (South Korea) was established in its southern part in 1948. The 1950 attack by the communist regime established in the northern part provoked a three-year war, which completely devastated the peninsula. When an armistice was signed in 1953, the Republic of Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. Following the military coup of 1961, two successive presidents – Park and Chun – focused on the promotion of the country’s economic development, while suppressing civil liberties and political freedoms. The end of authoritarianism in 1987 and the successful transition to a well-functioning democracy were marked by the rewriting of the Constitution and the democratic transfer of power to an opposition candidate in 1997-1998.

The legislative branch of government is incarnated by the unicameral Parliament, the Korean National Assembly (NKA). Among its competences is the right to launch an impeachment motion against the president, a right the KNA successfully exercised in December 2016. The judicial power is held by the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court, both of which in March 2017 upheld the impeachment of Park Geun-hye.

Since the late 1980s, Korea has served as an exemplary case of the “third wave” of democratisation, but its democracy has been in retreat since the 2010s. The Park Geun-hye administration (2013–17) regressed to an authoritarian mode of governance reminiscent of the Park Chung-Hee era, and she was ousted from power with impeachment. Tensions erupted in the Candlelight Protests of 2016 and 2017—a watershed moment in Korea’s political history. These protests demonstrated a recurring feature of Korea’s democratisation since the late 1980s: a confrontation between the state and civil society. Through the Candlelight Protests, Korea’s civil society rejected and ousted an authoritarian state once again. The Moon Jae-In administration built its political legitimacy on these protests by calling itself the “candlelight government,” but it failed to faithfully uphold the demands of the protestors and presided over a period of democratic decay in South Korea.

In 2022, South Korea had chosen a conservative opposition candidate, Yoon Suk-yeol, as the country’s next president following a tightly-contested race. Mr Yoon, a political novice, edged out a victory over the Democratic Party’s (DP) Lee Jae-myung based on promises to tackle class inequality. The result was one of the closest in history—with the final count separated by less than 1 per cent.

Mr Yoon’s People’s Power Party (PPP) had made abolishing the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family a central pledge of his campaign. Mr Yoon only entered politics in the previous year and rose to prominence for successfully prosecuting the former conservative president Park Geun-hye on bribery and corruption charges. During campaign he blamed the rise of feminism for the low birth rate in a country which has one of the worst records on women’s rights in the developed world. A survey in 2021 by a local newspaper found that 79 per cent of young men in South Korea feel “seriously discriminated against” because of their gender.

Misogyny is at the heart of South Korea’s election. It has one of the worst women’s rights records in the developed world. Many do not see feminism as a fight for equality. Instead they resent it and view it as a form of reverse discrimination, a movement to take away their jobs and their opportunities. Tens of thousands of young women took to the streets of Seoul in 2018 to shout “Me Too” after several high profile criminal cases involving sexual harassment and spy camera crimes known as “molka” were carried out. Subsequently, that cry was drowned out by men shouting “Me First”, reports BBC.

On April 10, 2024, voters went to the polls to elect 300 representatives to the 22nd National Assembly (NA) for a four-year term. This election represented an implicit referendum on the incumbent People Power Party’s (PPP) president, Yoon Suk Yeol, in that it offered voters an opportunity to express a judgement on his mid-term performance, two years after he had taken office. The 2024 NA election results confirmed that the DPK, with its two liberal “satellite” parties, had secured a significant parliamentary majority, with a total of 192 seats. This marks one of the largest majorities seen in recent decades. The opposing PPP received a reduced presence in the National Assembly, holding 108 seats compared to the 114 it previously held. Sweeping majority of the opposition in the Parliament did not allow the President to function properly. This has primarily triggered the crisis.

Serious social crisis

Korea was imbued with an extreme version of ethnic nationalism as it experienced colonial rule and national division on its path to modernity., wrote political analysts Gi-Wook Shin (2006). Ethnic nationalism elevates the collective over the individual, unity over diversity. It was thus difficult for liberalism, with its emphasis on individual rights and autonomy, to take root in Korea. The anti-communism of South Korea’s past authoritarian regimes and the chauvinistic anti-Japanese ideology of the Moon Jae-In administration both draw heavily from ethnic nationalism, which remains an incredibly powerful and attractive ideology to this day, he observed. The nation is at a cultural crossroads. It has a tech-savvy young generation who do not share the patriarchal views of their parents or their grandparents.

South Korea is facing a much more serious problem than the current political crisis. Various studies indicate that a vast number of young Koreans are experiencing extreme social withdrawal (ESW), and leaders are clueless on how to help them re-engage with society. ESW describes a condition where individuals stay in a confined space with minimal social interaction for an extended time. It often happens due to work-related or interpersonal challenges, and in Korea, it’s remarkably common. A 2023 survey by the South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare on more than 20,000, people aged 19-39 revealed a large number of young individuals experiencing ESW in South Korea. Young commonly struggle with hopelessness, loneliness, anxiety, and depression, and are at greater risk of drug dependency and suicide. Their isolation also impacts their families, the potential of the workforce, and the well-being of Korean society more broadly.

In sharp contrast to the optimism and hope of previous generations, data from the World Values Survey shows that the young Koreans’ belief that the “freedom of choice and control over their lives” has been declining since 1990. South Korea’s meteoric rise from one of the world’s poorest countries in the 1950s to one of the world’s richest today is named as “the miracle on the Han River.” Led by large family-owned business conglomerate, named Chaebols, Korea became a leader in manufacturing and technological innovation, with global brands such as Samsung based there. But many young Koreans find this global admiration puzzling next to the painful realities at home. The stories and songs that have propelled Korea’s recent fame—such as Squid Game, “No More Dream” by the boy band BTS, are actually cries of protest against the social injustices and barriers to social mobility in Korean society. Surveys, since 2015, have shown that many young adults want to emigrate. Analysts fear that there is no simple explanation for this “paradox on the Han River,” but what the country will do about it is an increasingly urgent question, especially for the next generation. Perhaps Korea will attempt to just ‘muddle through’ until it reaches a boiling point. History has not been kind in such circumstances; the French Revolution and the Arab Spring come to mind.

Observation

Prolonged political crisis in South Korea, an old and trusted ally of USA and the fourth largest economy of Asia after China, Japan and India is bound to have a destabilising impact on the global economy and also on the political alignment in the Indo-pacific region.

India has maintained a strong economic relation with South Korea since its independence. Many Chaebols like Samsung, Hyundai, LG electronics have brought their expertise and resources, impacting the Indian economy in a multitude of ways. Analysts observe that the Government of India is trying to create the Indian versions of the highly successful Japanese and Korean family owned firms. An in-depth study on the political and social developments of Korea before trying to replicate the chaebol model, which also suffers from many serious limitations, is needed.

Views expressed are personal