A look at the South Korean leader who has been impeached

 

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol delivers an address to the nation at the Presidential Office in Seoul, South Korea, Dec. 7, 2024. (Presidential Office via Reuters)

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA —

South Korea\’s parliament has voted to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol, a stunning fall from grace for a man who rose from political obscurity to the height of political power.

His decades of achievement could be on the verge of crumbling due to a single, baffling decision to send out troops under martial law over vague claims that one of Asia\’s leading democracies was under threat.

The impeachment suspends Yoon\’s presidential powers until the Constitutional Court determines whether to dismiss him as president or restore his powers. Yoon also faces investigations meant to find whether his December 3 decree amounts to rebellion, a crime that is punished by up to the death penalty in South Korea if convicted.

People hold candles during a candlelight vigil against South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul, South Korea, Dec. 4, 2024.

A neophyte in politics

Yoon joined party politics only about a year before he won the presidency, abandoning the liberal Moon after an impasse over a probe of Moon\’s allies. Moon\’s supporters said he was trying to thwart Moon\’s prosecution reforms and elevate his own political standing.

The 2022 presidential race was Yoon\’s first election campaign.

Yoon beat his rival, liberal firebrand Lee Jae-myung, by less than 1 percentage point in South Korea\’s most closely fought presidential election.

Their campaign was one of the nastiest in recent memory.

Yoon compared Lee\’s party to "Hitler" and "Mussolini." Lee\’s allies called Yoon "a beast" and "dictator" and derided his wife\’s alleged plastic surgery.

Domestic political strife

Yoon\’s time as president was dominated by frustration and acrimony, much stemming from his narrow victory and his party\’s failure to win control of parliament throughout his term.

When Yoon declared the state of emergency, he said a goal was to eliminate "shameless North Korea followers and anti-state forces" in an apparent reference to the opposition Democratic Party.

In a fiery speech on Thursday, Yoon again defended his martial law decree and vowed to "fight to the end" in the face of attempts to impeach and investigate him. He called the Democratic Party "a monster" and "anti-state forces" that he argued has flexed its legislative muscle to impeach top officials and undermined the government\’s budget bill for next year.

Claims of corruption also battered his approval ratings.

Yoon recently denied wrongdoing in an influence-peddling scandal involving him and his wife. Spy camera footage in a separate scandal also purportedly shows the first lady, Kim Keon Hee, accepting a luxury bag as a gift from a pastor.

Choi said he thinks Yoon likely planned the "clumsy martial law" edict to divert public attention away from the scandals.

"He tried to massively shake up the political world," Choi said. "But he failed. He likely believed there was no other option."

North Korea lashed out at his hard line

If political squabbles and scandal set the tenor of Yoon\’s domestic presidency, its foreign policy was characterized by a bitter standoff with North Korea.

Yoon early on in his presidency promised "an audacious plan" to improve the North\’s economy if it abandoned its nuclear weapons.

But things turned sour quickly, as North Korea ramped up its weapons tests and threats to attack the South. North Korea eventually began calling Yoon "a guy with a trash-like brain" and "a diplomatic idiot."

North Korea took that trash theme literally, sending thousands of balloons filled with garbage over the border, including some that made it to the presidential compound in Seoul at least twice.

Yoon\’s mention of North Korea as a domestic destabilizing force reminded some of an earlier South Korea, which until the late 1980s was ruled by a series of strongmen who repeatedly invoked the threat from the North to justify effort to suppress domestic dissidents and political opponents.

 

By：VOA