The Democratic Party (PD), the main opposition force in South Korea, and five other parties presented this Wednesday a parliamentary motion to dismiss the President Yoon Suk-yeolafter the president was forced to revoke the martial law that he had declared the day before.
The DP and other minority forces overturned Yoon’s martial law shortly after it was declared, and are now fighting back with a motion for impeachmentwhich was announced before the media in the National Assembly by the 192 deputies made up of the six parties.
The opposition proposal could be voted on Friday the 6th or Saturday the 7thwithin the period of 72 hours established by law to process this type of initiatives once presented. For the motion to go ahead, the support of at least 200 of the 300 seats that make up the South Korean Parliament is necessary. The PD and other forces added 190 votes the day before to revoke martial law, meaning they would only need around a dozen more votes to suspend Yoon from his duties.
Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law to, he claimed, protect the “constitutional order” against “anti-state” activities and “pro-North Korean forces.”
The PD, with a majority in the National Assemblyhad put the Government on the ropes by approving, without the support of the ruling People’s Power Party (PPP), general budgets for 2025 with multiple cuts, in addition to motions to dismiss the attorney general and the person responsible for monitoring the accounts of the public bodies.
from andYoon’s own People’s Power Party (PPP) HE has criticized his decision to apply martial law: The leader of the formation, Han Dong Hoon, said it was a “wrong” measure and promised that he would work to “stop it together with the people.” Even some of the PPP MPs actually voted in favor of revoking martial law.
All of this leaves the South Korean president in a position of increasing weakness, who has not made any appearance again No public statement since he announced last morning the lifting of martial law.
Indefinite general strike
Outside Parliament, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the largest union organization in South Koreadeclared this Wednesday an indefinite general strikedemanding the immediate resignation of the South Korean president.
The union has called on citizens to join the strike this Wednesday and has called on them to a “mass protest” at Gwanghwamun Square in the center of the capital, Seoulin what he described as the beginning of “emergency action at the national level.”
The union organization has justified the strike as a response to Yoon’s initiative, branded as “unconstitutional and democratic”, in a press conference reported by the newspaper Korea Herald.
“The president has revealed his undemocratic dictatorship by resorting to this unconstitutional and extreme measure,” he declared. “This marks the end of his regime. “We, along with the people of this nation, will not sit idly by,” he added.
If the impeachment motion is approved, Yoon would be stripped of his duties until the Constitutional Court deliberates for a maximum period of 180 days on whether it has violated the Constitution of the Asian country.
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