South Korea’s National Assembly voted on Saturday to impeach President Yoon Seok Yeol, suspending him from office after a self-coup attempt by declaring martial law failed earlier this month. The maneuver caused widespread outrage and plunged the country into a constitutional crisis.
With the support of his People Power Party, Yoon had survived an earlier impeachment vote on December 7. With this result, Yoon is suspended from his position. In accordance with the South Korean Constitution, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, of his same party, will take office on an interim basis.
Han was appointed by Yoon in 2022. He said in brief comments Saturday that his heart was heavy. “I will focus all my forces and efforts on stable management of the affairs of the State.”
As the statement of the South Korean group March To Socialism advanced:
If the impeachment case is approved, the president’s authority will be transferred to the prime minister, who was aware of and discussed the implementation of emergency martial law with Yoon Suk-yeol in a cabinet meeting, but did not reveal it to the public. . Han Deok-soo is also a declared enemy of the workers and the people: he never opposed, not even once, all the arbitrariness and attacks on the workers that Yoon Suk-yeol committed. Should we give power to the person who directed all the atrocities of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration, including the attacks on the logistics and transportation union using the order to resume work, the ban on the strike of contract workers at Daewoo Shipbuilding, the same one that promoted the 69-hour work week, the reduction of real wages, the escalation of the war crisis and the attack on women and minorities? No! All those who have served Yoon Suk-yeol’s administration must be punished.
“This is a victory for the South Korean people and for democracy,” Park Chan-dae, of the Democratic Party and opposition leader, declared at a press conference.
Yoon reiterated his intention to fight the dismissal before the Constitutional Court, which will now decide whether to reinstate or formally dismiss him, a process that could last up to six months. “I will never give up,” he said in a televised speech shortly after the vote. In that same speech, Yoon listed what he considers his accomplishments as president. He did not express regret or mention his decision to declare martial law.
Inside Parliament there were celebrations by legislators when the president announced that the votes in favor of impeachment had exceeded the 200 necessary to be approved. The result indicated that 12 legislators from Yoon’s party had joined the opposition to oust him.
The thousands of protesters gathered in front of the Assembly in the middle of freezing weather, jumping, hugging or shaking hands.
“I am ecstatic, but this cannot happen again,” An Jung-hyun, 26, told the news agencies present. When he was a high school student he joined the protests against President Park Geun-hye, also impeached in 2017.
This is the third time in the country’s modern history that Congress has approved an impeachment. The previous time, the Constitutional Court unanimously approved the vote and dismissed former President Park. The first, in 2004, annulled the impeachment of then-president Roh Moo-hyun.
Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, addressing the crowd, noted that their fight was not over. “We’ve only gotten over a small mountain,” Lee said. “There is a bigger and steeper mountain ahead” in reference to the processing of the case in court.
The court proceedings can be extended up to 180 days, during which the same party will continue to govern, only in the hands of the former prime minister and now interim president Han.
As the March To Socialism statement says:
Will we sit idly by as long as the Yoon Suk-yeol administration is in power during this time? No! We have to throw out the government of Yoon Suk-yeol, a sworn enemy of the workers and the people that cannot be tolerated even one more day, with the workers’ and popular struggle.
It should be remembered that Yoon declared martial law on December 3, accusing the opposition of paralyzing his government, and soldiers were sent to the National Assembly. However, lawmakers managed to reject the statement, prompting Yoon to revoke his order within hours.
It was the first time a South Korean president had declared martial law since the end of the country’s military dictatorship in the late 1980s.
The ouster was the latest twist in a turbulent tenure that began in 2022, when Yoon narrowly won the election on a conservative, pro-business platform. His tenure has been marked by near-constant protests and political gridlock.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
