President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment and suspension from office has left South Korea, one of the United States’ most important allies, without a strong elected leader to tackle challenges like a belligerent North Korea and a deepening political polarization at home.
By voting to impeach Mr. Yoon on Saturday, the National Assembly delivered a crushing vote of no confidence in a leader who had been unpopular through his term. Outside the legislature, people danced in the streets, celebrating Mr. Yoon’s peaceful removal from office less than two weeks after his declaration of martial law as proof of the resilience of the country’s democracy.
Yet, despite their euphoria, the political turmoil and uncertainty unleashed by Mr. Yoon’s botched attempt on Dec. 3 to place his country under military rule for the first time in 45 years remained unresolved.
His impeachment has created a political vacuum at the top. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, the No. 2 official in the government hierarchy, has stepped in as the interim leader, but he has no electoral mandate. A new government cannot be born until the Constitutional Court decides whether to reinstate or formally oust Mr. Yoon.
The court’s deliberations could take up to six months. When the court deliberated on the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye in 2016, it needed three months to reach its conclusion and remove her. This time, the nine-member court has the additional problem of having three vacancies to fill. In the coming days, the National Assembly is expected to name three justices, asking Mr. Han to formally appoint them. Only two of the existing six justices were appointed by Mr. Yoon’s progressive predecessor, Moon Jae-in.
If Mr. Yoon is formally removed, South Korea will need another two months to elect a new president.
Mr. Yoon said he would “never give up” the fight to return to office. But he also faces investigations by the police and prosecutors on charges including insurrection, which could lead to his arrest.
The impeachment bill accused Mr. Yoon of perpetrating an insurrection when he declared martial law, because he sent troops into the National Assembly to block it from voting down his martial law, as it is allowed to do under the Constitution, and to detain his political opponents. Senior officials in the government, police and military have been arrested on charges of helping him carry out an insurrection.
The political turmoil will make it harder for South Korea to navigate the uncertainty around the incoming Donald J. Trump administration. Mr. Trump has described the alliance with South Korea as a terrible bargain for the United States and said that he would get along well with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un. Mr. Trump has threatened to make South Korea pay more for the 28,500 American troops based on its soil and to impose bigger tariffs on South Korean exports to the United States.
“We won’t have strong leaders who can actively negotiate with the Trump administration to sort these things out,” said Sung Deuk Hahm, a professor of political science at Kyonggi University, west of Seoul.
The challenge for Mr. Han, the interim leader, will be to keep the government functioning through this crisis. Though Mr. Han has been a career bureaucrat since the early 1970s, serving in posts that include trade negotiator, finance minister and ambassador to the United States, he lacks political clout because prime minister is not an elected post.
“The acting president’s role is to maintain the status quo,” said Lim Ji-bong, a professor of law and expert on the Constitution at Sogang University in Seoul. “Enforcing a significant new policy is considered beyond his power.”
Mr. Han and both the country’s finance and foreign ministers have faced questions over their roles in Mr. Yoon’s declaration of martial law, further limiting their mandate, according to some legal scholars and opposition lawmakers. Mr. Han said he and other ministers opposed Mr. Yoon’s martial law decree but could not persuade him out of it.
Mr. Han is viewed more as an even-keeled caretaker than as a charismatic leader, in some ways complementing Mr. Yoon, who has been criticized as impulsive and a braggart. When Mr. Yoon came under fire for inadequate preparations for the World Scout Jamboree last year that left hundreds ill from heat exhaustion, it was Mr. Han who traveled to the campsite to personally clean the public bathrooms there.
Such acumen served him well in his bureaucratic career. Now he will need to draw on all his skills to steer his country through a constitutional crisis and other intractable problems, including a widening income gap, mounting household debt and simmering gender and generational tensions.
One of the first things he did as acting president on Saturday was to call the National Security Council to check on the country’s military preparedness. On Sunday, he called President Biden to emphasize the importance of the alliance. Matthew Miller, spokesman of the U.S. State Department, said that the alliance remained “ironclad.”
“I consider this my last and most important mission in my long career in the public sector,” Mr. Han, 75, said about his new role. “I will do the best I can.”
The main opposition Democratic Party had at first threatened to impeach Mr. Han for his role in Mr. Yoon’s martial law. But on Sunday, the party retracted the threat and its leader, Lee Jae-myung, proposed establishing a consultative body comprising members of the political parties and the government to help stabilize the country. He also urged the Constitutional Court to reach its conclusion as soon as possible. Mr. Lee is favored to win if a presidential election were to be held now.
“The most urgent thing is to normalize the country,” Mr. Lee said at a news conference on Sunday.
In a defiant speech on Thursday, Mr. Yoon said he would “fight to the end” the attempt to unseat him — a message that political analysts said was a battle cry for his supporters and was expected to deepen political polarization. Mr. Yoon has die-hard supporters among right-wing South Koreans. A long line of wreaths and messages of support for him stretched along the street leading to his office.
Mr. Yoon had won plaudits in Washington and Tokyo by aligning his country more closely with the United States and Japan to deter China and North Korea. But at home, his two-and-a-half years in office have been marked by a near-constant clash with the opposition, allegations of corruption and abuse of power involving him and his wife, and accusations that he used state prosecutors to silence unfriendly journalists and political dissidents.
Most South Koreans would rather live with the temporary political uncertainty than keep in office the unpopular president whom they see as having hurt their country’s image as a vibrant Asian democracy with global cultural appeal.
Mr. Yoon’s misjudged martial law also damaged his image abroad by creating questions about the South Korean conservative elites’ commitment to democratic norms and the integrity of the country’s military, analysts say.
“He blew away his foreign policy achievements — which could have been his most important legacy — through his self-destructing terror,” said Prof. Hahm.
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