Impeached president vows to ‘step aside’ in televised address
South Korea’s impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol on Saturday said he would “step aside” after parliament voted to remove him from office, urging an end to “politics of excess and confrontation”.
“Though I must now step aside for a while, the journey toward the future… must never come to a stop,” he said in a televised address.
Key events
Raphael Rashid
The jubilant crowds outside the national assembly have dispersed and everything is being packed up. The streets look remarkably clean. In a characteristic display of Korean civic-mindedness, protesters tidied up after themselves, collecting rubbish and ensuring everything was back in place. The same is true at K-pop concerts, where fans leave venues spotless. And tonight felt very much like a concert. K-pop light sticks – a symbol of the movement to impeach Yoon – are now being sold at a discount.
The vote to impeach South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, was a dramatic fall from grace for the conservative leader, who must now suffer the ignominy of being forced from office well before the end of his five-year term.
But the vote on Saturday in the national assembly, where the impeachment motion just exceeded the required two-thirds majority after 12 members of Yoon’s party sided with the opposition, does not mean his presidency has ended.
Attention will now turn to South Korea’s constitutional court, which faces unprecedented challenges in handling Yoon’s impeachment. Will it remove Yoon from office or reject impeachment?
Thousands celebrated outside parliament as the impeachment was announced, two weeks after the president Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived declaration of martial law, which plunged the country into its worst political crisis for decades. The prime minister and now acting president, Han Duck-soo, vowed to ‘ensure stable governance’ after the announcement:
South Korea’s alliance with the US ‘remains unchanged’ after impeachment
South Korea’s foreign minister said the country’s foreign policy based on its alliance with U.S. would remain unchanged after President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached on Saturday, the ministry said.
South Korean senior diplomats met ambassadors from the United States, Japan and China to explain the situation on Yoon’s impeachment, the ministry said in separate statements.
Opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung told protesters near parliament that they should fight together so Yoon was removed as quickly as possible. “You, the people, made it. You are writing a new history,” he told the jubilant crowds, who had braved subfreezing temperatures to attend the rally.
Protesters backing Yoon’s impeachment leapt for joy near parliament at the news and waved colourful LED sticks as music pumped out. By contrast, a rally of Yoon supporters quickly emptied following the news.
Yoon is the second conservative president in a row to be impeached in South Korea. Park Geun-hye was removed from office in 2017. Yoon survived a first impeachment vote last weekend, when his party largely boycotted the vote, depriving parliament of a quorum.
“Although I am stopping for now, the journey I have walked with the people over the past two and a half years toward the future must never come to a halt. I will never give up,” Yoon said.
South Korea’s ruling party leader Han Dong-hoon said he took seriously the result of Saturday’s vote in parliament to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Despite calls by some party lawmakers to step down amid splits in the party, Han said he would continue his duty.
South Korea’s acting defence minister, Kim Seon-ho, called on the military to maintain preparedness, the ministry said on Saturday.
He ordered commanding officers to work promptly to stabilise their troop commands, the ministry said in a statement after parliament passed a motion to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Impeached president vows to ‘step aside’ in televised address
South Korea’s impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol on Saturday said he would “step aside” after parliament voted to remove him from office, urging an end to “politics of excess and confrontation”.
“Though I must now step aside for a while, the journey toward the future… must never come to a stop,” he said in a televised address.
A Seoul police official told AFP at least 200,000 people had massed outside parliament in support of removing the president.
Choi Jung-ha, 52, danced in the street after the vote.
“Isn’t it amazing that we, the people, have pulled this off together?” she told AFP.
“I am 100 percent certain the Constitutional Court will side with the impeachment.”
On the other side of Seoul near Gwanghwamun square, police estimated 30,000 had rallied in support of Yoon, blasting patriotic songs and waving South Korean and American flags.
“Yoon had no choice but to declare martial law. I approve of every decision he has made as president,” supporter Choi Hee-sun, 62, told AFP before the vote.
The last South Korean leader to have been toppled in a similar way was Park Geun-hye in December 2016, who was impeached by Parliament in a decision confirmed in March 2017 by the Constitutional Court, leading to her indictment and imprisonment.
Geun-hye, president since 2013, is the daughter of former dictator Park Chung-hee, she was the first woman president of South Korea and had presented herself as incorruptible.
But she was accused of receiving or requesting tens of millions of dollars from conglomerates, including Samsung. Additional accusations included sharing classified documents, putting artists critical of her policies on a “blacklist”, and dismissing officials who opposed her.
Park was sentenced in 2021 to 20 years in prison and slapped with heavy fines. But at the end of that year, she was pardoned by her successor, Moon Jae-in.
South Korean PM vows to ‘ensure stable governance’
South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo on Saturday vowed to “ensure stable governance” after the country’s parliament voted to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol.
“I will devote all my strength and efforts to ensure stable governance,” Han, who becomes the country’s interim leader in Yoon’s place, told reporters.
South Korea’s parliament has voted to impeach the president, Yoon Suk Yeol, almost two weeks after his short-lived declaration of martial law plunged the country into its worst political crisis for decades.
In dramatic scenes at the national assembly in Seoul, 204 lawmakers voted for an opposition motion to impeach Yoon, while an estimated 200,000 protesters outside demanded he be thrown out of office.
Saturday was the second opportunity in a week the assembly’s lawmakers had to begin the process of ousting Yoon, whose approval ratings have plummeted to 11%.
Read our full report with Raphael Rashid in Seoul and Justin McCurry in Tokyo:
South Korean Prime Minister Han Duk-soo said on Saturday that he would do his best to run the government stably after the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol.
“My heart is very heavy” Han, who will become acting president as Yoon’s presidential powers are suspended, told reporters after parliament approved the impeachment motion.
Raphael Rashid
As a journalist, I breathed a sigh of relief when the impeachment vote result was announced. I have covered South Korea for the past decade, and the martial law declaration sent chills through Seoul’s press corps, including the foreign media.
When we received news that media would be controlled, my colleagues and I faced a terrifying prospect. That night, in newsrooms across the country, journalists kept broadcasting and writing despite the explicit threat of censorship. We knew that if the declaration had stood, journalism would have been one of its first casualties.
Pictures show people celebrating after South Korean parliament passed a second impeachment motion against President Yoon Suk Yeol over his martial law decree following a vote, during a rally calling for the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol, who declared martial law, which was reversed hours later, in front of the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea.
Justin McCurry
Human Rights Watch welcomed the vote to impeach Yoon. “Today’s impeachment of President Yoon over his shocking attempt to declare martial law serves as a reminder as to how close democratic South Korea came to the brink of martial law, recalling the country’s dark history of military dictatorship,” Simon Henderson, HRW’s deputy Asia director, said in a statement.
“Instead, the people of South Korea and lawmakers have stood up and fought to protect their democracy and human rights. The impeachment proceedings highlight how checks and balances are essential in stopping abuses of power and supporting the rule of law.”