South Korea’s president is facing calls to impeach him after martial law conflict By Reuters

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean lawmakers on Wednesday called on President Yoon Suk Yeol to resign or face impeachment after he declared martial law to reverse the move hours later, sparking a political crisis in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

The surprise announcement on Tuesday sparked a standoff with parliament, which rejected his attempt to ban political activity and media criticism, as troops stormed the National Assembly building in Seoul.

The main opposition Democratic Party has called for Yoon, who has been in office since 2022, to resign or face trial.

“It has been clearly expressed to the whole nation that President Yoon will no longer be able to manage the country in a normal way. He should step down,” said senior DP member of parliament Park Chan-dae in a statement.

Six opposition parties in South Korea said they will submit Yoon’s impeachment bill on Wednesday, the Democratic Party said in a message sent to reporters, and will be voted on on Friday or Saturday.

The leader of Yoon’s ruling People Power Party called for the dismissal of Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun and the entire cabinet.

Yoon told the nation in a televised address late Tuesday that martial law is needed to protect the country from a nuclear-armed North Korea and anti-government militias, and to protect the country’s free constitution, though he did not outline specific threats.

Chaos broke out as soldiers tried to seize the parliament building, parliamentary aides fired fire extinguishers to push them back, and protesters clashed with police outside.

The military said that parliamentary activities and political parties would be closed, and the media and publishers would be controlled by military rule.

But lawmakers defied the security order and within hours of the announcement, South Korea’s parliament, with 190 of its 300 members present, unanimously passed a motion to lift martial law, including all 18 members of Yoon’s party. The president then retracted the announcement.

Protesters outside the National Assembly shouted and clapped their hands. “We won!” they sang, one of the overseers beat a drum.

“There are opinions that it was too difficult to go to emergency martial law, and that we did not follow the procedures of emergency martial law, but this was done within the framework of the constitution,” a South Korean presidential official told Reuters by telephone.

More protests are expected on Wednesday as South Korea’s largest trade union, the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions, plans to hold a meeting in Seoul and vows to strike until Yoon resigns.

The US embassy has urged US citizens in South Korea to avoid areas where protests have been ongoing, while other major employers including Naver Corp and Company LG Electronics Inc (KS:) advises employees to work from home.

Financial markets were volatile as South Korean shares fell nearly 2% and profits held steady after a two-year decline. Traders reported the suspicious intervention of the South Korean authorities to stop the win slide.

Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok and Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong held emergency meetings overnight and the Finance Ministry pledged to support markets if needed.

“We will invest unlimited money in stocks, bonds, the short-term money market and the forex market for the time being until it is completely normal,” the government statement said.

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A South Korean supermarket, which declined to be identified, said sales of canned goods, noodles and bottled water rose overnight.

“I am very worried about this situation, and I am very worried about the future of the country,” Seoul resident Kim Byeong-In, 39, told Reuters.

The National Assembly can impeach the president if more than two-thirds of the members vote against him. The case was then heard by the constitutional court, which confirmed it with a vote of six out of nine judges.

Yoon’s party controls 108 seats in the 300-member legislature.

If Yoon resigns or is removed from office, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo will take over as leader until new elections are held within 60 days.

“South Korea as a nation dodged a bullet, but President Yoon may have shot himself in the foot,” said Danny Russell, vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute in the United States, referring to the first declaration of martial law in South Korea. since 1980.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he welcomed Yoon’s decision to withdraw the martial law declaration.

“We continue to expect political differences to be resolved peacefully and in accordance with the law,” Blinken said in a statement.

South Korea hosts about 28,500 US troops as a legacy of the 1950-1953 Korean War.

Scheduled defense talks and joint military exercises between the two alliances were postponed amid widespread disagreements over the overnight chaos.

Sweden’s prime minister has postponed a visit to South Korea, a spokesman said, while a group of Japanese lawmakers on Korean affairs canceled a trip to Seoul that was scheduled for mid-December.

Yoon, a prosecutor by profession, won the most intense presidential election in South Korean history in 2022, riding a wave of discontent over economic policy, scandals and gender wars.

But he was unpopular, with approval ratings hovering around 20% for months.

His People Power Party was resoundingly defeated in the parliamentary elections in April this year, ceding control of the unicameral assembly to opposition parties that took almost two-thirds of the seats.

There have been more than a dozen instances of martial law declared since South Korea was established as a republic in 1948.

In 1980, a group of military officers forced former President Choi Kyu-hah to declare martial law to end calls for the return of a democratic government.

(This story has been corrected to remove reference to the first official comment, and to clarify that a presidential official told Reuters by phone, not in a statement, in paragraph 12)