His days as South Korea’s President of two years must be numbered as Yoon Suk Yeol stoked extreme anger over his impudent declaration of martial law on Tuesday. Even as protests were beginning to spread in the vibrant democracy, the cornered President reversed his order on Wednesday after having caused endless anxiety with martial law rule that young Koreans may have never heard of.
It could have been said that this is not the era of martial law. South Korea, having seen much turmoil for decades, especially between 1979 and 1987 after long term military dictator Park Chung-hee was killed in a coup, left its days of being a police state behind and progressed on the democratic route and as a close ally of the United States even as it sustained its industrial and economic status as a producer of goods for the world.
An impeachment motion, brought by the Opposition Democratic Party and which will probably be backed by members of his own People Power Party, was set in motion a day after MPs had gathered in Parliament to oppose martial law. Many members, including women lawmakers, had scuffled with troops to get into Parliament to vote against Yeol’s ill-conceived move.
This aberration on a pulsating democracy was imposed by a beleaguered President who had been unable to have his way in the legislature since the Opposition won a landslide victory last April. He was also hounded for the luxurious ways of his wife, the First Lady, who may have accepted gifts like expensive handbags and manipulated the stock market.
A dynamic free media, which had been his bugbear as the drama played out in public of a President who was fast losing control, went on to defy martial law that barely lasted a day. This is a triumph for the democratic urge that has kept South Korea together in the last five decades.
It is as well that anti-state forces wreaking havoc while supporting the dictator of its northern neighbour may have all been only in Yoon Suk Yeol’s imagination and who may have tried to replicate his old work as a prosecutor by taking aim at all perceived enemies. It is a marvel how quickly everyone rallied to shoot down the attempted coup of a politician under siege.
