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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.
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.”
Why Assad’s sudden fall was surprising
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Why did you originally think Assad would be able to resist being overthrown?
I am absolutely surprised at the sudden regime change after 50 years of the Assads being in charge. A couple of reasons for it. First is because despite HTS wanting to engage in strikes, the Turkish government, which has been supporting them militarily, had been saying, "No, no, no." And even when they supported them, it was a flashing yellow light. It was take local territory, let the Syrians have more control over their border region. It was not going after Assad. Also, because the Russians and the Iranians, though they were significantly stretched, were providing military support in the early days. So that's the reason I thought that they were likely to be able to resist, but the fact is that they imploded very, very quickly.
What led you to believe Yoon's martial law declaration would fail in South Korea?
Well, here felt a lot like January 6th in the United States, January 8th in Brazil. You had a besieged individual leader, in this case not about an election, but facing 20% approval rates and massive corruption scandals and all sorts of impeachments against members of his cabinet, just getting desperate and deciding to pull the trigger on emergency martial law illegally and without talking even to leadership of his own party. So it seemed pretty clear that there wasn't going to be support. The South Korean people, the judiciary, the parliament, and rank and file, and the military were clearly not going to be supportive. So I mean, I expected that to last very, very briefly, and it fell apart very quickly indeed. He should be out of power in short order. And I expect he's going to resign, by the way, as opposed to being impeached, but it could go either way.
What's another major geopolitical assessment you've made that played out differently than expected, and what does it reveal about the complexities of global politics?
One of the biggest ones is probably the role of technology in geopolitics. Back in the '90s, if you think about the coloured revolutions in the former Soviet republics, you think about the Arab Spring after that, technology was really the communications revolution. It was decentralizing. It gave individuals access to more information and power. It undermined authoritarian regimes, and it promoted democracy. And today, just 20 years, 25 years later, technology has completely changed geopolitically. It's much more top-down. It's much more centralizing. It's about the data revolution, the surveillance revolution. It increasingly empowers authoritarian states that know how to use it, and it undermines democracies. And that is maybe one of the biggest geopolitical changes that's happened in my political lifetime, certainly the biggest since the Soviet Union imploded back in 1989 to '91. And it just goes to show that no matter what you think about the world, if you're not constantly updating your views, you're going to be wrong at some point.
South Koreans hold a mass rally demanding the impeachment and imprisonment of President Yoon Suk-Yeol near the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, on Dec. 7.
Is anyone in charge of South Korea?
We imagine Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un is enjoying the scent of chaos emanating from his southern border. Last week, you’ll recall, President Yoon Suk Yeol took a page from Kim’s playbook and declared martial law in South Korea. That ended quickly, but the instability continues.
Deeply unpopular and hounded by scandals, Yoon may have thought he could take out his political enemies by suspending military and political activities, but steadfast legislators quickly gathered to vote and end the mutiny. Politicians then moved to impeach Yoon, but he survived when fellow conservatives in his People Power Party walked out before Saturday’s impeachment vote. While over 100,000 people protested Yoon’s leadership outside the legislature, only 195 legislators supported impeachment, just shy of the 200 votes needed for it to pass.
Afterward, Yoon apologized and promised not to declare martial law again, but that doesn’t mean all is forgiven. Yoon still faces legal trouble – prosecutors have opened a criminal case against him – and the PPP has reportedly officialized his “early resignation.” PPP leader Han Dong-hoon said Yoon has been effectively sidelined from his duties and that “the prime minister will consult with the party to manage state affairs.” Yoon's former defense minister has also been arrested.
Korean politics have entered “truly uncharted waters,” says Eurasia Group expert Jeremy Chan. “Yoon is politically radioactive, with no member of his own party defending his decision to impose martial law,” which means his “presidency is effectively over, even if he manages to stay in office for a few more weeks.”
Pressure will build on Yoon and the party for him to offer an “orderly resignation,” Chan explains. If he refuses, “the odds that he is impeached by the National Assembly will grow each week,” and the pressure will be accompanied by more and more public protests and strikes.
What about regional security? For now, Chan thinks Kim will keep his head low. “Kim’s risk appetite will be low in the short term given that a more accommodative administration is likely to follow in South Korea once Yoon is gone and elections are held.”
But what if Yoon holds on for months amid political paralysis? Then, Chan says, “Kim could see this as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to strike amid a leadership vacuum in South Korea.”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.
People gather outside the National Assembly after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, in Seoul, South Korea, on Dec. 4, 2024.
South Korean president declares martial law — then backs off
In an unexpected, late-night speech on Tuesday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, banning all political activity, taking control of all media, and suspending parliament. For all of a few hours, it turned out. Now, he's facing possible impeachment.
The announcement appeared to come as a total shock to all parties except the military, with even the head of Yoon’s party announcing he would “stop it, with the people.” Troops surrounded the National Assembly in Seoul soon after Yoon’s announcement to preempt resistance, but 190 of the chamber’s 300 lawmakers made it inside after midnight, with more held up at the gates.
Legislators unanimously voted to order Yoon to lift martial law, and Speaker Woo Son-shik declared the president’s action “null and void.”
Meanwhile, thousands of citizens arrived to demonstrate in the wee hours. They chanted “Abolish martial law!” and “Arrest Yoon Suk Yeol!” Demonstrators blocked an eight lane road and began organizing impromptu caravans to bring in protesters from across the country, but by 4 a.m. the crowds began to thin.
Soon after, Yoon caved in. He got back on television around 4:20 a.m. to announce he had called a cabinet meeting, and that martial law would be lifted within hours.
What the hell was Yoon thinking? It was “an act of political desperation,” says Eurasia Group’s Jeremy Chan. It wasn’t about North Korea or social order — despite Yoon’s claims, he explains. Yoon was “trying to send a message to the National Assembly and bring all legislative investigations to a halt.”
Yoon, who is deeply unpopular, has been trapped in a stalemate with the opposition that controls the legislature. They have repeatedly tried to launch corruption investigations against his wife, which Yoon always vetoes, and moved to impeach government prosecutors while stymying the president’s budget priorities. Still, Yoon’s calculus is not entirely clear, as he was not subject to impeachment proceedings.
What happens next? “It’s hard to see how Yoon survives this unless there’s some sort of other shoe to drop that we don’t know about yet,” said Chan.
On Wednesday, amid calls for Yoon to resign, South Korea’s opposition politicians began impeachment proceedings that could lead to a vote as early as Friday.
Two-thirds of legislators must vote in favor in order for Yoon to be impeached, and the opposition has the needed votes almost by themselves; it will take only a small number of votes from Yoon's party to pass. The impeachment must then be approved by the Constitutional Court of Korea, and if Yoon is removed from office, a new election will be held within two months.
Beyond that, it’s unclear whether Yoon might face any legal punishment for his attempt to suspend democracy, but two out of the last three South Korean presidents served jail time after their terms for considerably less serious violations.
How is the world reacting? Mostly with shock. US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell expressed “grave concern” but reiterated that Washington stands by its ally. President Joe Biden was briefed while traveling to Angola, and US officials say they are in contact with their counterparts in Seoul.
Plus: For more on why South Korea’s president declared martial law, check out Ian Bremmer’s latest Quick Take here.
Why South Korea's president declared martial law
President Yoon had said that the reason for this is that the opposition is supporting North Korea and that there are North Korean forces that have been infiltrating the South Korean opposition. It is true that this opposition, this is by the way the ruling party in parliament, supports the "Sunshine Policy" and Yoon's government is hard line on North Kore. But there's no evidence of any North Korean infiltration or involvement. What there is evidence of is that President Yoon is incredibly unpopular. Lots of corruption scandals around his family, around his government, approval ratings in the 20s, which is pretty much the lowest you'll see of any advanced industrial democracy today. Though there are a number of countries that are trying to give him a hard run for it.
The opposition party, the ruling party in parliament, has been pushing really hard to make his life miserable. They have investigated his wife. They've tried to impeach a number of cabinet officials. They're refusing to pass the budget and apparently he just couldn't take it anymore. I'll tell you, nobody expected it. Aside from the military leaders that he coordinated with, senior government officials were shocked by the move. Our parliamentarians were shocked by the move. This isn't like January 8th in Brazil where it was clear that Bolsonaro was going to do everything he could try to overturn the elections. Just as it was clear January 6th in the United States that Trump was going to do everything he could to overturn election.
This is a very different situation. This was a very sudden move. It is perfectly legal to declare martial law, but you have to actually pre-notify the National Assembly, which he did not do, so it wasn't done legally. You also need 151 lawmakers to approve martial law within 72 hours. That isn't going to happen. The next thing that's very likely to occur are lots of demonstrations and it's very hard to imagine that the military would violently break them up. This isn't Pakistan. And we also saw an emergency session that they got a majority for of National Assembly lawmakers that all 190 voted to end this. So I think what's going to happen is President Yoon is going to wake up tomorrow with a really bad hangover, certainly a political one, maybe others too, and going to realize that he did something incredibly stupid, overreached, and has destroyed any remaining legacy that he might have had.
South Korea's going to remain a democracy. This coup will be very short-lived. I'd be surprised if outside of South Korea we're talking much about it in coming weeks. But it is important. It's important because South Korea is an ally of the United States. It now has a robust relationship with Japan. In fact, the tripartite agreement brokered by Biden at Camp David was arguably his greatest foreign policy success. The equivalent of the Abraham Accords by the Trump administration. And the right-wing Yoon is particularly aligned with Japan and the Japan's LDP Party as well as with the Americans and certainly would be with incoming President-elect Trump. So in that regard, the US is going to have a hard time being overtly critical. They won't want to because, as unhinged as he is, he is a strong ally.
And an incoming administration, if he's now assumingly going to be impeached and probably end up in prison, is not going to be as aligned with the United States or Japan going forward would also lead to a softer policy towards North Korea. So I do think it matters geopolitically long-term, but the coup itself is not something that is going to be sticking around. So I think we still have a democracy in South Korea. We'll watch this unfold and I'll talk to you all real soon.
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Brothers of Italy party leader Giorgia Meloni attends the fourth voting session to elect the new parliament speaker in Rome.
What We’re Watching: Italy’s new leadership questions, Russia’s martial law, US midterm messaging
Meloni faces uphill battle in Italy
How long can any Italian government last? That’s a good question in a country that has had 67 governments in the past 76 years. Now Giorgia Meloni, head of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, is set to take over as prime minister, and the going won’t be easy. The economy is hurtling towards recession, says the IMF, while consumer prices are soaring, particularly for energy – in part due to the war in Ukraine. But while she has pledged continued support for Ukraine, Meloni’s coalition partner Silvio Berlusconi, head of Forza Italia, has signaled a different view. The aging former prime minister and media mogul is picking fights over ministerial posts, belittling Meloni publicly, and in a leaked recording, talked about recently exchanging liquor with Vladimir Putin while questioning Italy’s support for Kyiv. Berlusconi is a minor partner compared to the more powerful Matteo Salvini and his rightist League Party, but Meloni has also clashed with Salvini on energy matters. So we’ll be watching to see how warm and cozy this coalition stays as Meloni heads into a winter of troubles.
Putin declares martial law
Well, he still refuses to call it a “war,” but as Russian forces continue to reel from a Ukrainian counteroffensive, President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday declared martial law in four regions of Ukraine that he illegally annexed in September. The decree gives the local governors broad powers to forcibly relocate, detain, or otherwise restrict the liberties of the population. In a separate decree, Putin also expanded the powers of governors elsewhere in Russia proper to do the same. The move comes as officials in the province of Kherson, seized by Russia in early March, began evacuating large numbers of people ahead of a feared Ukrainian advance on the capital city. Kherson city is a key port located where the Dnipro River meets the Black Sea. The surrounding region gives overland access from mainland Ukraine to the Crimean peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. With the recently sabotaged Kerch Strait bridge unlikely to be fully repaired before next summer, Kherson is a crucial strategic prize for both sides.
US midterms roundup: both sides taking best shots now
With the US midterm elections less than three weeks away, both Republicans and Democrats are zeroing in on some key messages. The latest polling shows things edging the Republicans’ way, but the races remain extremely tight. President Joe Biden on Tuesday tried to light a fresh fire under Democrats by promising to Federally codify abortion rights if Democrats can improve on their effective 51-seat majority in the Senate and hold on to the House. Biden has also promised to release more crude from the US’ emergency stockpiles this winter to tamp down high energy costs. The GOP, for their part, are hammering the administration over their own voters’ key issues: the highest inflation in 40 years, an uptick in crime in some big cities, and record numbers of undocumented immigrants at the southern border. But House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday played a new card that we may see more of, promising to revisit support for Ukraine if his party retakes the House. His remarks expose a potential rift between America First Republicans, who are skeptical of supporting Ukraine, and more establishment GOP Russia hawks. Still, about two-thirds of Americans support Washington’s current policy of arming Ukraine.This article comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Sign up today.