In South Korea, Yoon's failed coup pushes him towards the exit
- sebastienfalletti
- Jan 5, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 7, 2025
After promulgating martial law, the President is threatened with impeachment.
Correspondent in Seoul. 4th December 2024.
‘ Stop the coup ! On the tarmac, the crowd massed in front of the white gates cries out, in the middle of the night chill. Midnight has already struck in Seoul, and the fate of South Korea is being decided right now, beyond this iron gate, in the intimidating colonnaded building of the National Assembly, surrounded by police in fluorescent uniforms. A few minutes earlier, helicopters dropped special forces commandos on the roof with the mission of taking control of the Parliament of this young Asian democracy. The scene seems to have slipped out of a 1970s movie. ‘ I couldn't just sit at home and watch my country fall back into dictatorship ! I came as soon as I heard the President's announcement. It's the future of democracy that's at stake ’, explains Baek, a 25-year-old student with a long lock of hair sweeping across his livid face. Thousands of Seoulites converged on Yeoido Island, the seat of parliament in Asia's fourth-largest economy, under the light of street lamps, in the wake of the shock promulgation of martial law by President Yoon Suk-yeol on 3 December during an unexpected televised address in the evening.
Coup
A race against time to stop the coup unleashed by the conservative leader, reviving the spectre of the military dictatorship that reigned until the 1980s. At around 11pm, General Park An-soo, who is in charge of enforcing martial law, decreed that ‘ all political activities, including at the National Assembly, all gatherings and demonstrations are prohibited ’. Nearly 280 soldiers entered Parliament, attempting to surround the MPs with tear gas. The aim was to prevent the MPs from voting on a motion that would invalidate the presidential decree.
In the surrounding area, armoured vehicles lurked in the back alleys. The crowd in parkas, armed with telephones, blocked the advance of the camouflage-coloured vehicles topped with a turret, as Le Figaro observed on the spot. At the wheel, a young helmeted soldier looks phlegmatic. ‘ We've come here to protect this building, which symbolises the sovereignty of the people. It's our only way of stopping this absurdity. This is the21st century ! I'm not afraid. They can't kill us like they did in the past ’, Kyunghee Koh enthused outside the gates. This is an allusion to the Gwangju massacre, when General Chun Doo-hwan's troops opened fire in 1980 in this south-western town, killing hundreds. A ‘South Korean Tiananmen’ that became the bloody epiphany of the opening up of the country of 51 million inhabitants to the world, now a cultural beacon for the world's youth.
Special forces
Forty-four years later, Yoon's attempt to turn back time failed miserably at the foot of the gleaming skyscrapers of Yeoido, the financial district of the sprawling capital. At around 1am, 190 MPs from all sides of the House, either barricaded in the Chamber or hastily returned, voted unanimously in favour of a motion demanding the withdrawal of martial law, to the beard of the soldiers, who had remained on hold. The emergency law, described as ‘ illegal “ by Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPRK), was now ” null and void ’, proclaimed the speaker of the House. Outside, the crowd exulted when the news appeared on the phones. ‘ It's over ! ‘ enthused Mr Cho, raising his arms to the sky. The demonstrators immediately took up another slogan: ‘ Arrest Yoon Suk-yeol !
After a few hours of uncertainty, the barricaded President complied with the injunction of the Assembly and the street, as required by the Constitution. A decree lifted the martial law imposed the day before. A lightning political crisis, conducted at the " pali pali ’ ( fast fast) pace so dear to Korea, signalling the bitter failure of a populist leader out of breath and at rock bottom in the polls.
Pyongyang
Yoon's ‘nuclear’ option of martial law sounds like the final gamble of a leader who has been cornered since his defeat in April's parliamentary elections. Elected by a narrow margin in the 2022 presidential elections, this magistrate with no political experience has never managed to secure a parliamentary majority, a first in the history of the young republic, becoming a lame duck before his time. The fear of a new campaign in the streets, as well as in the Assembly, aimed at removing him from office, like his conservative predecessor Park Guen-hye, in 2017, would have pushed the leader to take the initiative, by resorting to the army, according to observers. As in the case of Michel Barnier, the blocking of the budget in Parliament acted as a detonator.
Yoon's martial option stunned the South Koreans, seeming to propel the land of the Morning Calm into a great anachronistic leap backwards, with the allure of a tragicomic farce. Staring straight into the camera, the former prosecutor waved the threat of North Korea around, using militaristic language that smacked of the 1950s. Martial law aims to ‘ protect liberal South Korea from threats posed by North Korean communist forces and eliminate elements hostile to the State ’. A nod to the scarecrow Kim Jong-un... But the population remains indifferent, despite the growing North-South tensions in recent months. The North Korean regime, for its part, has remained unmoved along the DMZ. ‘ It was a botched coup d'état engineered by Yoon's ultra-conservative inner circle. The aim was to provoke a reaction from the North to better justify the takeover, using Chun's old recipe ’, says a former military officer based in Seoul.
Yoon's outburst already heralds his likely downfall, two years before the end of his term in 2027. Although life resumed at dawn in the country of 51 million inhabitants, the president is already being pushed towards the exit. While his cabinet tendered its resignation en masse, impeachment proceedings were initiated in parliament by the opposition, a few hours after his retreat. The motion will be put to the vote on Friday or Saturday. The CVP has demanded his ‘ resignation “, backed by the unions calling for an ” unlimited general strike ’ until the leader steps down. More seriously, its own party, People Power, has called for him to be ‘ held to account ’ by its young rival Han Dong-hoon. The support of the conservative MPs for the crucial night vote on the motion mathematically opens the door to impeachment, while the opposition has so far managed to escape a few precious votes in order to carry out its plan.
Impeachment
Yoon's televised announcement further confirmed his disconnection with a rapidly changing society, marked by a subterranean rejection of traditional Confucian values by new, more individualistic generations. ‘ It seemed lunar. How could he have imagined that public opinion would follow him ? ‘ wonders Philippe Li, founder of the KEY think-tank in Seoul.
The crisis is a last stand for the ultraconservative base that dominated the country during the authoritarian years of the Korean economic miracle. ‘ We are living in the last fires of this old ultra-reactionary Korea ’, says Kyunghee Koh, demonstrating outside the gates of Parliament, all smiles. The end of an era, perhaps, but one that leaves a political landscape more polarised than ever, in step with many democracies, in an uncertain geopolitical climate.
Correspondent in Seoul
Copyrights@Lefigaro
Link to the orginal article in French:
