Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken holds a joint press conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae Yul following their talks in Seoul on Jan. 6, 2025.
South Korean authorities get extension to Yoon arrest warrant
South Korean anti-corruption authorities reached a deal with police to extend their warrant against impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol on Monday after failing to arrest him on Friday. A six-hour standoff with presidential security in the official residence amounted to nothing, and the corruption investigators have asked the National Police Agency to take over the responsibility of detaining Yoon. Authorities have not disclosed the new extension's expiration date.
Police are in uncharted waters, however, as no previous South Korean president has been arrested before being removed from office. Yoon was impeached in December, but vacancies on the constitutional court have prevented his official removal. Meanwhile, his party is playing for time – hoping to stall long enough to allow the high court to rule on a case that could render the opposition leader ineligible to run in elections to replace Yoon.
The gridlock is starting to chafe allies, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had expressed “serious concerns” during talks in Seoul with his counterpart on Monday. But Blinken also praised the strong response of South Korean institutions to Yoon’s attempt to seize power through martial law.
North Korea, which has taken a cautious approach thus far amid Seoul’s domestic upheaval, used Blinken’s visit as an opportunity to test a medium-range missile with a supposedly hypersonic capacity. We’re watching how Pyongyang approaches potential provocations once the Biden administration leaves the scene.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol delivers an address to the nation at the Presidential Office in Seoul, South Korea, December 12, 2024.
South Korean president’s removal slows down over court vacancies
On Tuesday, the floor leader for South Korea’s newly-impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol’s party said it would be inappropriate to fill vacancies on the constitutional court with the powers of an acting president, setting up a fight aimed at slow-rolling Yoon’s final removal from office.
Wait, how is Yoon impeached but not gone? It’s a two-step process. The National Assembly was able to clear the two-thirds supermajority to impeach Yoon on Saturday, and he was immediately suspended from office. Now at least six justices on the constitutional court need to approve the legality of the impeachment — and this isn’t a given. The court overturned the much more controversial impeachment of former President Roh Moo-hyun in 2004. Once that hurdle is cleared, Yoon is gone for good, and a sixty day clock starts ticking down to fresh elections.
There’s just one problem. Three of the court’s nine seats are vacant, meaning the entire bench would need to vote unanimously to remove Yoon. Even though the facts are pretty stacked against Yoon, just one justice could theoretically put him back in office, which is why the liberal opposition wants to fill the three seats.
Ideally, as quickly as possible, because their leader, and presumptive presidential candidate, Lee Jae-myung is in legal hot water of his own. He was convicted of violating election laws and handed a one-year suspended sentence in November, which could prevent him from running for president — if the Supreme Court upholds the ruling.
Eurasia Group’s Jeremy Chan says the opposition “recognizes that the longer this drags out, the greater the chances that the Supreme Court will have time to rule on Lee’s conviction,” and possibly keep him out of the race. We’re watching how acting president Han Duck-soo handles the vacancies, as well as how the criminal case against Yoon and his collaborators proceeds.
What's next for South Korea after President Yoon's impeachment?
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your week. The South Korean President, Yoon Suk Yeol has been impeached. Second time the charm, the first time his own party didn't go ahead with it because they wanted to give him the opportunity to resign, himself. He chose not to, shredding what little was remaining of his own personal and political legacy, and now he's out. The party itself basically freed the members of the party to vote their conscience, and many of them did, and that's it. He's now a former president. There's a caretaker government coming in with the prime minister in charge. South Korea's in disarray. They don't have a president. They don't have a minister of interior. They don't have a minister of defense. They don't have a minister of justice. Everything's not occupied and going to have to be, "acting," for a matter of months.
First, you've got to get the constitutional court to rule on this, and that will happen. But there are three absentees that need to be appointed there. Hopefully that all gets done within a matter of weeks, a couple of months, and then after that, when it's upheld the impeachment, then you'll have new elections in a couple of months.
So, I mean, first the bad news. The bad news is that this was a disgrace. It was an active subversion of the South Korean constitution or attempt thereof, and their checks and balances on their president and his approval ratings as he's forced out in the single digits, we're talking Peru president levels almost, at this point. It comes at a bad time. The Japanese have a weak government in coalition, and the United States has a new president coming in with much stronger consolidated power. So if you're South Korea and you need to formulate a response to dealing with America First demands, to spend more money on American troops on the ground, demands to do more, to redress what's seen as a trade imbalance by the incoming President-elect. All of that is really hard to do when you don't have an effective government. That's the bad news.
The good news is that the system worked the way it was supposed to, and both the military, and the judiciary, and the constitutional court, and the parliament, everyone is acting to contain behavior that is off the rails by a sitting executive. And that shows that South Korean democracy is very much functional and representative of its people, much like nearly all of the advanced industrial democracies. The US is the country that is the outlier here. South Korea, not so surprising.
Another piece of bad news is that it's almost certain that the winner, the incoming winner of the next presidential election will be the Democratic Party of Korea, which got the majority in parliament in the last parliamentary elections. And their leader, Lee Jae-myung is frankly not much more popular than outgoing Yoon. It's going to be, he's had his own scandals, electoral scandals that could potentially bring him down depending on how the court, the Supreme Court rules, assuming that that doesn't happen. If it did, it would cause massive instability and lots of people out on the streets demonstrating and the rest. But if that didn't happen, then he's going to be the leader of South Korea and he'll be again, a very weak leader. It'll also be a very weak leader leading the country in a very different direction. This is a party that will actively support the Sunshine policy with North Korea, very different than outgoing former President Yoon. Would support closer ties with their leading trade partner, China. Would question the rapprochement with Japan and would also question a stronger relationship with their defense partner and ally, the United States. So a lot of uncertainty going forward with South Korea.
One other really interesting thing about this whole saga is the role that AI played. Yoon, a deeply unpopular kind of anti-social figure. Very brusque, not an obvious retail politician, but on the campaign trail, developed an AI essentially deep fake Yoon that was training on a lot of his speeches, but better looking and more engaging and more social, and was used extensively on the campaign trail, both to talk about his policies, to engage with individual voters, to hurl insults at the opposition, and even to engage socially. And this was, I mean, AI Yoon was a lot more popular than actual Yoon, and a big piece of why it was that he ended up being elected president. Unfortunately, AI Yoon was not the president that the South Koreans got. They got actual Yoon who turned out to be possibly even less capable than AI Yoon, and we are all very happy to see the back of him.
So that's pretty much the end of this crazy little few-week saga in South Korean politics. We now bring you back to our regularly scheduled program.
FILE PHOTO: South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol speaks on the government budget at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, 25 October 2022.
K-Drama continues as Yoon defies summons
South Korea’s rogue President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached on Saturday and is now facing charges of insurrection – but will he show up for trial?
Yoon failed to appear in court Sunday after receiving a summons from prosecutors investigating him and senior officials for abuse of authority and obstructing rights. Then, when investigators attempted to serve him a request for questioning regarding the insurrection charges on Monday, his office refused to accept it.
The charges stem from Yoon’s shock invocation of martial law December 3 - a decree that was overturned a mere six hours later. Yoon’s powers have since been suspended until the constitutional court confirms the legality of his impeachment.
What happens next? The court began deliberations on Monday, with a ruling expected within 180 days, but a decision could come sooner based on the impeachments of previous South Korean leaders. If Yoon is dismissed, a national election must be held within 60 days. Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, seen as the frontrunner to replace Yoon, proposed a special council for policy cooperation between the government and parliament and called for a quick resolution “to minimize national confusion and the suffering of the people.”
Based on this Saturday’s giant dance party in Seoul following the impeachment, however, it doesn’t seem that South Koreans are that upset. Thousands braved the bitter cold and took to the streets to celebrate, after a vote the previous weekend failed to garner enough support.
A 24-hour Yonhapnews TV broadcast at Yongsan Railway Station shows South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol delivering a speech at the Presidential Office in Seoul. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, defended his botched martial law declaration, as an act of governance and denied insurrection charges facing him, while vowing to fight until the last moment against whether it is impeachment or a martial law probe.
Yoon Suk Yeol can’t take “yes” for an answer
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol looks highly likely to be impeached on Saturday after the leader of his own party on Thursday told members to vote according to their “conviction and conscience.” Yoon cooked his own goose earlier in the day by delivering a fiery speech defending his decision to briefly impose martial law on Dec. 3 — and crashing behind-the-scenes efforts to allow him to resign on his own terms in the process.
“We tried to find a better way than impeachment, but that other way is invalid,” said Yoon’s party leader, Han Dong-hoon. “Suspending the president from his duties through impeachment is the only way for now, to defend democracy and the republic.”
If at least eight members from his own party vote with the opposition majority — and six have already pledged to do so — Yoon will be immediately suspended from office, with the prime minister assuming presidential responsibilities. His official removal will have to wait for the Constitutional Court to confirm the impeachment as legal, which could take weeks or months as three of the bench’s nine seats are vacant.
Eurasia Group’s Jeremy Chan says Yoon will keep fighting all the way.
“Yoon will likely contest the impeachment charges in a way that we have never seen before, arguing that declaring martial law was within his presidential powers and a legitimate action to defend against the fierce opposition to his governing that the opposition-led National Assembly presented,” says Chan. “This will be a losing argument but one that I expect Yoon to make forcefully and personally before both the Constitutional Court and his likely criminal investigation.”
We’re watching how quickly the opposition chooses to roll the process along, as the timing of the by-election to replace Yoon depends on when the court rules.
A protester wears a South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol mask while holding a representation of prison bars, during a rally calling for the impeachment of the South Korean President, who declared martial law, which was reversed hours later, in front of the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, December 11, 2024.
South Korean prosecutors weigh arresting president, police retreat after standoff
In South Korea, President Yoon Suk Yeol’sparty hasturned on him, throwing their support behind attempts to impeach him after last week’s brief declaration of martial law. The flip came moments before Yoon delivered a fiery speech Thursday in which he justified his actions and vowed not to step down.
The lead prosecutor in South Korea’s criminal investigation into Yoon said Wednesday he would arrest the presidentif warranted. Also on Wednesday, police attempted to raid the Yongsan Presidential Office to secure evidence of Yoon’s actions and mindset before and during the martial law order but retreated after an hourslong standoff with presidential security.
Yoon survived an impeachment vote last weekend, but he faces another one on Saturday. The opposition Democratic Party, which controls the National Assembly but falls eight votes short of the bar for impeachment, is far more likely to succeed this time now that Yoon’s People Power Party is backing impeachment.
As GZERO previously reported, PPP’s leader had been pressuring Yoon to step down and avoid impeachment altogether, though perhaps not immediately. They wanted to get Yoon to publicly agree now to resign in, say, February, which would’ve pushed elections even further away, creating space for maneuvering. Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, who is the likely presidential candidate, has his own legal problems that could bar him from standing for office — if courts have enough time to process his case, that is. But with Yoon increasingly defiant, his party has decided to take matters into their own hands.
Can they really arrest the president? Ordinarily no. South Korea’s president enjoys immunity from prosecution — except in the case of insurrection charges. The case looks quite serious, and the former defense minister who allegedly encouraged the coup attempt tried to commit suicide following his arrest. He is now hospitalized, and the heads of the National Police Agency and Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency are also under arrest.
Looking ahead, Eurasia Group expert Jeremy Chan says Yoon’s impeachment is all but assured and that it “will be a positive development for the country because it will strip all presidential duties from Yoon and begin the process of turning the page on his presidency, which is likely to go down in history as the worst of its kind.”
Protesters hold placards during a candlelight vigil to condemn South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's surprise declarations of the failed martial law and to call for his resignation in Seoul, South Korea, December 5, 2024.
Could Yoon declare martial law again?
On Thursday, Han Dong-hoon, the leader of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s party, said he was opposed to impeaching Yoon because it would add to national confusion. By Friday, however, he had changed his mind.
“Should Yoon continue to serve as president,” Han said Friday, "I think there is great risk for extreme actions like this martial-law declaration to happen again."
Now, the clock is ticking: By Saturday, lawmakers will vote on Yoon’s future, and if two-thirds agree to impeach, he will be immediately suspended from office.
Han’s change of heart may be linked to reports that Yoon ordered Han’s arrest when he declared martial law on Tuesday. According to the National Intelligence Service deputy director, Yoon’s arrest list also included the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, Lee Jae-myung, and three opposition lawmakers. But there is confusion about that, too, because the head of the intelligence service said the opposite — that Yoon had not ordered arrests of the lawmakers.
Details of the chaotic planning “are more damning than initially expected and indicate that South Korea’s political system may have narrowly escaped a far more destabilizing outcome," says Eurasia Group’s Jeremy Chan.
The opposition controls a majority but falls eight votes short of the two-thirds margin needed to impeach. If Han lends his support to the effort, then Yoon’s goose is likely cooked.
Meanwhile, amid fears that Yoon might try to declare martial law again, South Korea's acting defense chief says he would refuse any such orders.
Watch the streets. Many South Korean voters are outraged by Yoon’s actions, and a failure to remove him from office quickly is likely to cause the modest protests and strikes to grow dramatically. We have our eye on the reaction to the impeachment vote, and to Han’s reversal on fighting it.
South Korean protestors calling for the dismissal and impeachment of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol outside the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, on December 4, 2024. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol briefly declared martial law on December 3, 2024, citing threats to democracy from opposition lawmakers he labeled as pro-North Korea. The decree, which restricted political activities, media, and strikes, was quickly overturned by the National Assembly. The event highlights rising tensions and Yoon’s declining authority following significant opposition victories in recent elections.
South Korean president faces impeachment, treason charges
Soon after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol lifted his imposition of martial law early Wednesday, opposition parties filed an impeachment bill against him in the National Assembly. Now, the clock is ticking: By Saturday, lawmakers will vote on Yoon’s future, and if two-thirds agree to impeach, he will be immediately suspended from office.
Yoon’s defense minister, chief of staff, and top secretaries have all resigned, and the president faces calls to do the same. South Korea’s largest labor union is calling for mass strikes if Yoon refuses to step down.
The opposition Democratic Party is also drawing up treason charges against Yoon and his defense and interior ministers, which could land them behind bars if convicted. Two presidents from South Korea’s military-rule era, Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, were convicted of treason in 1996.
What happens now? Yoon could resign, but Eurasia Group’s Jeremy Chan says that’s not his usual MO. “He’s a pugilist by nature. I don’t think he will go out without a fight,” he says, though “there is a slim chance that he can secure a deal with [opposition leader Lee Jae-myung] to go quietly and fade into the background in exchange for immunity for him and his wife.”
Still, Yoon’s ouster isn’t guaranteed. The opposition needs to peel off at least eight votes from Yoon’s party for the bill to pass, but given the bipartisan rejection of the coup attempt, that seems feasible.
If the bill passes, it then goes to the Constitutional Court, where at least six of nine justices need to confirm the impeachment before Yoon is removed, a process that could take weeks. There’s a wrinkle here as well, as currently the court has three vacant seats, so the decision needs to be unanimous – or the vote has to await three appointments.
We’re watching how Yoon plays the next few days, and the scramble for position ahead of elections likely to be held in the spring if Yoon is impeached.