[Column] The work isn’t over yet for Korean democracy

A word cloud for April 4 — the date of Yoon’s removal from office — comprising words including “justice,” “democracy,” “Into the New World,” and more. (graphic by Hong Jung-gil)

By Park Chan-su, senior staff writer

Yoon Suk-yeol has been removed from office as president of the Republic of Korea. He took office on May 10, 2022, which means that two years and 11 months have passed.

If we take into account the government’s de facto paralysis since his failed insurrection attempt on Dec. 3 of last year, Yoon’s ouster puts him out of office having only completed half of his five-year term. That is an incredibly fast exit even when compared with the case impeachment of Park Geun-hye eight years ago, when she was removed with 11 months left in office.

While the direct impetus for this was a martial law declaration that defied all imagination, the fundamental reason lay elsewhere. Specifically, it had to do with the abject failure of Yoon’s governing capabilities.

The Republic of Korea has been effectively at a standstill in the nearly three years since Yoon took office. Indeed, it has regressed, if anything. The economy has stagnated, the people’s lives have become more difficult, and the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula have been driven to the brink.

In the past, both progressive and conservative administrations focused on expanding social services and investing in growth through research and development. Yoon simply ignored these basic duties.

One global investment bank predicted that this year’s economic growth rate could fall to below 1%. While there are a number of external variables at play, including the war in Ukraine, a large part of the blame goes to the administration for failing to respond quickly to the situation.

As president, Yoon showed no interest in the public. His only declared mission was to “destroy leftists.” He described his martial law declaration as being meant “to immediately eradicate shameless pro-North Korean, anti-state forces.”

Once a country’s top leader in state affairs commits themselves fully to an ideological war, there is no possibility for their administration to function properly. We find past examples of this in the disastrous World Scout Jamboree in Saemangeum and the failed Busan Expo bid. It was no exaggeration when the Hankyoreh published a column entitled “I awoke one morning and found Korea less advanced.”

Yoon’s example truly brought home to South Koreans just how dire the consequences of choosing the wrong leader can be under a presidential system. The sight of him inciting his supporters with calls to “fight to end” while resisting the enforcement of the law was a far cry from what the public hoped to see from a president.

In that sense, it is fortunate for us that the Constitutional Court ruled to remove him from office. We have been through a terrible experience with the martial law declaration and impeachment, but this has also ironically gifted us with the opportunity to inaugurate a new administration without entrusting state affairs for another two years to a leader who is not just incompetent but depraved.

Now we need to look past the impeachment and start taking new steps forward. What makes the Constitutional Court’s ouster of Yoon so meaningful is not only that it showed the world the astonishing resilience of South Korean democracy but also that it restored that democracy peacefully and without bloodshed.

Back when Yoon declared martial law on Dec. 3 of last year, the countries of the West were astonished at how such a thing could happen in “one of the most dynamically developing countries.” The passionate defense and restoration of democracy shown by South Koreans have been enough to move the rest of the world.

A symbolic moment was captured in a photograph of demonstrators spending the night under blizzard conditions in front of Yoon’s presidential residence in Seoul’s Hannam neighborhood to demand his arrest. The delay in the Constitutional Court’s decision sparked feelings of worry and anger, and it is laudable that people were able to wait peacefully until the end while trusting in the system.

The Constitutional Court finally answered that long wait by persuasively presenting an item-by-item, irrefutable list of reasons why Yoon Suk-yeol needed to be removed from the office of president.

Globally, we are in a reflexive period. Since the democratization of Eastern Europe in the 1990s, democracy has established itself through an unstoppable current that included the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Jasmine Revolution of Tunisia, and the Arab Spring. 

South Korea has always been at the forefront. The June Democratic Struggle of 1986 ended the military dictatorship. A decade later, the country witnessed its first peaceful regime change. In 2017, millions of people gathered in public squares to hold up their candles and ousted a president who revived authoritarianism. 

However, we are seeing a rise in elected authoritarian leaders who run counter to democracy, not only in Asia and South America but in the US and Europe as well. US President Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán are examples. 

The same goes for former Yoon Suk-yeol. Despite his razor-thin electoral victory, he ignored democratic processes, refused to cooperate with the National Assembly, and abused the authority of prosecutors. He revived emergency martial law, something we thought had disappeared into the pages of history, to mobilize the military in an attempt to suppress the National Assembly. 

In Asia and South America, it’s difficult to find cases where democracy peacefully recovered — that is, without bloodshed — after collapsing. The Korean people, due to their extended experience with military dictatorships in the past, react more sensitively to authoritarian transgressions more than anyone. The sensibilities and passions of Koreans have inspired people around the world as a “living model of democracy.” 

It’s also significant that there were no procedural or institutional shortcomings in the process of our democratic revival. The candlelight protests that brought down Park Geun-hye in 2017 were followed by the Hong Kong democratization movement and the protests against the Myanmar military junta. South Korea’s ousting of a reckless authoritarian in 2025 hopefully serves as an alarm about the regressions in democracy that are being played out in the US and Europe. 

However, it’s not enough to merely protect democracy. We can no longer tolerate the conservative movement and the far-right factions that have rallied around Yoon since his insurrection attempt. Their rise shows us that the most urgent political task is isolating these forces. Yoon’s martial law stunt had little support from military leaders and troops; there was no justification for it. However, the far right that believes his lies has seen explosive growth. 

The Liberty Unification Party has emerged as the crux of the “asphalt far-right” movement under the pastor Jun Kwang-hoon. In the general election of April 2024, Liberty Unification candidates received 2.26% of the vote. A few days ago, however, they took home 32% of the votes in the by-election for Seoul’s Guro District Office chief. Of course, this is partially the result of the lack of a candidate from the main conservative party, the People Power Party (PPP). However, PPP lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun publicly supported the Liberty Unification campaign, and it’s clear that the party receives significant support from within the PPP. 

If a political party is healthy, it needs to have the capacity and sense for balance to weed out extremism. The PPP does not have such a capacity. Rather, it supports Yoon, who tried to destroy our republic, and is being swayed by the asphalt far right. It’s highly likely that the PPP candidate in the snap presidential election will be someone who has consistently stood by Yoon and opposed impeachment from the beginning. 

The worrying thing is, the far-right swerve within the PPP is probably not going to go away any time soon. The slogans they shout in rallies go beyond “no impeachment.” They are filled with hatred for China, xenophobia, and fake news about election fraud. It’s similar to what we’re seeing in the far-right parties of Europe. 

There is a lesson we should heed from the 2017 impeachment of Park Geun-hye. The incredibly vast spectrum of people who showed up in the candlelight rallies, the “impeachment alliance” of progressives and reasonable conservatives, presented an opportunity to form an important base for the great social compromise following the launch of the new regime. However, the alliance fell apart all too easily, and cooperation between the new administration and civic society failed to sustain itself. 

The Moon Jae-in administration’s initiative for peace on the Korean Peninsula and its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic are notable achievements. However, the failure to utilize the candlelight alliance to propel reform held the administration back throughout Moon’s entire term. The 2022 election ended in the worst possible outcome, with power being handed off to Yoon Suk-yeol, a populist prosecutor who was completely unprepared for politics. In two months, South Korea will see its second administration born out of impeachment. The new administration will need to heed the lessons of 2017 and proceed meticulously. 

#Column #work #isnt #Korean #democracy