It’s been a contentious 24 hours in South Korean politics, after impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol narrowly avoided arrest for insurrection on Friday, a month after his martial law declaration.
It’s the latest development in a month-long political meltdown that has not only thrown Korean politics into turmoil, but surfaced the country’s deep political polarization, evidenced most dramatically by dueling protest movements — one calling for Yoon’s ouster and arrest, and a smaller but still vocal one trying to protect him.
The crisis took a dramatic new turn on Friday, when officials with the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) tried to enter Yoon’s residence to arrest him for his martial law declaration on December 3 — and possible attempted self-coup. Though many South Koreans took to the streets demanding the arrest, counterprotesters blocked the road leading to the presidential palace and used social media to insist that an arrest was illegal.
CIO officials eventually called off the attempt to detain Yoon after his presidential security detail, aided by military personnel, blocked the CIO’s entry to the palace.
“Regarding the execution of the arrest warrant today, it was determined that the execution was effectively impossible due to the ongoing standoff,” according to a CIO statement. “Concern for the safety of personnel on-site led to the decision to halt the execution.”
That doesn’t mean Yoon’s troubles are over, however; there is an ongoing case against him in South Korea’s constitutional court — which will ultimately decide whether the impeachment stands and Yoon will be permanently removed from power — and the arrest warrant is still valid through Monday. If he is detained, he will be the first sitting South Korean president to be arrested. (While Yoon has not yet been removed from office, an acting president has been carrying out his duties since the National Assembly’s December 14 vote to impeach him.)
The intensity and instability of the past month means there’s no clear sense of what comes next for South Korea. As Friday’s unrest underscored, however, whatever the fate of Yoon’s political career, the future will likely revolve around the divide between the country’s two main political parties: Yoon’s conservative People Power Party and the more liberal Democratic Party.
How did we get here?
When Yoon declared martial law, he was in the second year of his five-year term (South Korean presidents are allowed to serve just one term). During his tenure, his approval rating fell below 20 percent, as his political agenda stalled in South Korea’s legislature, the National Assembly, which is controlled by the center-left Democratic Party.
According to Celeste Arrington, a professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and director of the George Washington Institute for Korean Studies, Yoon “certainly is unpopular and frustrated by an inability to do politics.”
“Yoon is the first president in democratic South Korea to rule without his party in the majority in the National Assembly,