South Koreans have spent the weekend celebrating with street parties in Seoul and other cities. Millions watched on Friday as the chief justice of the South’s constitutional court, Moon Hyung-bae, formally expelled president Yoon Suk Yeol from office. Moon’s statement, upholding Yoon’s impeachment and delivered on live television, felt for many like the longest 22 minutes in living memory.
The parties are an expression of relief – and a celebration of democracy – after 15 weeks of deliberation and months of chaos since Yoon declared martial law on December 3rd. The president banned protests, muzzled the media and ordered the arrest of opponents, backed by the threat of lethal force.
When the decree backfired, he barricaded himself into the presidential residence in Seoul, while supporters and rivals scuffled outside.
Friday’s damning verdict, that Yoon had “abandoned his constitutional duty” and “gravely betrayed the trust” of South Koreans, should end his political career, and the looming menace of a return to the violent past. Yoon’s predecessor Chun Doo-hwan, took power after declaring martial law in 1979, then banned his opponents and ordered the army to suppress rebellion, killing hundreds of people.
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Yet, despite the relief, “South Koreans are deeply divided over the course their country should take,” warns Alexis Dudden, a professor of history at the University of Connecticut. While Yoon’s attempt to reverse hard-won democratic gains failed, he was a very effective polariser. Like so many places, says Dudden, much of this division derives from economic uncertainty – likely compounded by US president Donald Trump’s imposition of 25 per cent tariffs on South Korea.
Even before Trump’s announcement, the south’s government was struggling to address what the Korea Times recently called an “alarming” rise in income and wealth disparities. The south’s economy is heavily dependent on exports, especially to the US and China (most US exports to South Korea arrive duty free).
A populist conservative, Yoon did little to close the growing wealth gap but stoked divisions with Trump-style culture wars, denouncing opponents as ‘anti-state’ agitators and campaigning against feminism. One of his pledges was to scrap the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family because he said it was “structural discrimination”.
In another nod to US politics, Yoon embraced YouTube conspiracy theories about the ‘deep state’, amplifying baseless claims that elections had been rigged. In January his supporters violently attacked a courthouse in Seoul after it issued his formal arrest warrant. Chief justice Moon was targeted, too, in daily protests.
These political and social schisms found expression in mass street rallies for and against Yoon throughout winter. Yoon’s supporters waved South Korean and US flags, and adopted the “Stop the Steal” slogan popularised by Trump supporters after their failed insurrection of January 2021. Yoon’s removal will reinforce his image among these supporters as a political martyr.
Complicating an already muddy picture is the rise in popularity for Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP), despite his own personal disgrace. Some interpret that as a backlash against what is seen as legal overreach by the opposition.
All this means that the race over the next two months to elect Yoon’s successor will be lively, predicts Dudden. “The streets of Seoul will get louder as spring unfolds, and the vaporisation of the United States as a meaningful ally in the mix will only redouble a sense of insecurity all around.”
