President Yoon Impeached: What Next for South Korea?
09:05 Share

This video is brought to you by Ground News. On Saturday, South Korea's President Yoon Suk-hyol was impeached by the National Assembly, the latest in a dramatic series of events that began with his botched attempt at imposing martial law two weeks ago. So in this video we're going to explain the impeachment, what happens next, and why the political turmoil is set to continue in South Korea for some time yet.

Before we start, if you haven't already, please consider subscribing and ringing the bell to stay in the loop and be notified when we release new videos.

We're going to start with some very brief context, but if you want more, then check out our first video on the whole saga. The link is in the description. The TLDR is that late at night on Tuesday the 3rd of December, President Yoon announced he was imposing martial law on the country, for the first time since the end of military rule four decades ago. He denounced the opposition-controlled National Assembly for its multitude of impeachment attempts of government officials and obstructionism over the budget.

as an attempt to justify his shock move. Protests soon erupted and there was a race for the National Assembly as troops were deployed to try and prevent lawmakers from overturning Yoon's declaration. Enough lawmakers were able to gather and they quickly voted to revoke martial law and within six hours of declaring it, a defeated Yoon was forced to lift the order. The first attempt at impeaching Yoon failed as not enough lawmakers from his Conservative People Power Party broke ranks.

However, with mass protests continuing through the following week and Yoon refusing to resign, another impeachment vote was held last Saturday. And as 12 of Yoon's own lawmakers broke ranks, the two-thirds threshold was met and Yoon was impeached. But that impeachment vote was far from the end of the line, and this political turmoil will continue for some time yet. So what is the process from here?

Well, the matter now goes to the Constitutional Court, which must decide on whether to uphold the impeachment or not within 180 days. While the court is deliberating, Yoon, in the meantime, is suspended from the presidency's powers and duties.

South Korea's Prime Minister Han Duk-soo is now acting president in his stead. If the court overturns impeachment, Yoon will be reinstated. However, if the court upholds impeachment, new presidential elections must be held within 60 days of the ruling. So, all in all, this whole process could go on for up to eight months, although there are some factors suggesting the timeline might be shorter.

First, in South Korea's only two previous impeachment cases, the court acted relatively quickly. In 2017, it upheld the impeachment of Park Geun-hye after three months. And in 2004, the court overturned President Roh Moo-hyun's impeachment after two months.

And second, with only six out of the nine seats on the court actually currently filled and two of those sitting justices' terms expiring in April, Reuters reports that legal experts predict the court may seek to rule before those terms expire. To uphold an impeachment, six out of nine justices need to vote in favour. So with only six justices actually sitting, it will need to be a unanimous decision by those six to uphold Yoon's impeachment.

Now, there was some uncertainty about how and whether the court would proceed with the impeachment trials given the three vacant seats. However, on Monday, the court said it could begin the trial despite the vacancies and would schedule the first hearing for December 27th.

The National Assembly has also said it will move quickly to try and fill the vacancies, with the aim of finalising the process of filling the positions by the end of the year. Nevertheless, independently of this constitutional process, Yoon is also under criminal investigation for insurrection and abuse of power, which could prove to be a more immediate threat than impeachment.

Regardless, before we get on to what might happen if impeachment is upheld, let's look at South Korea's immediate future, which is looking really quite turbulent. From a pure timing perspective, this is not a great time to have your elected president suspended and replaced by a temporary acting one. Like basically every other country, and particularly as a key US ally, South Korea is having to grapple with the return of Donald Trump.

When Trump takes office in January, he could quite quickly, for example, impose tariffs on South Korea, which has a trade surplus with the US approaching $50 billion. And he may also seek to demand billions more dollars from the South Korean government for the US military presence in the country. To be presented with these challenges when the country doesn't really have a proper leader is not ideal, to say the least, especially given the importance of strong interpersonal relationships when dealing with Trump.

As for the longer-term implications, if Yoon is fully ousted by the court and an early election is held, cutting his term short by roughly two years, South Korea may well be on the verge of a significant political shift, because, as things stand, left-leaning opposition leader Lee Jae-myung is considered the favourite to win the next presidential election.

In the last few years, Lee, a populist who has been compared to both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, has arguably been in headlines as much as Yoon. Lee was the Democratic Party's presidential candidate in 2022, narrowly losing to Yoon in what was South Korea's closest election ever. Last year, Lee carried out a 24-day hunger strike in opposition to Yoon's policies. And in January 2024, Lee was stabbed in the neck during an assassination attempt that he survived.

However, the big question is not whether Lee will be able to win an election, we know he probably could, it's whether he'll actually be able to run, as the man has a number of legal troubles.

Chief amongst these is the fact that he was convicted last month for violating electoral law, which could see him barred from running for office for years. It's now a question of timing. Lee has appealed the conviction, which could buy him enough time to compete in a snap presidential election, which, if he wins, would see him earn immunity. There's easily a whole video to be made on what a Lee presidency would look like, particularly its implications for relations with the US and Japan and North Korea and China.

But perhaps we're getting ahead of ourselves, as lots of things need to happen before we get to that point. In the meantime, it's worth wrapping up by reflecting on the brief but tumultuous martial law episode itself. As time has gone on, it's become increasingly clear how remarkably poorly planned Yoon's attempt was, and how remarkably quickly and effectively South Koreans mobilised to fight back against it.

This came in the form of lawmakers climbing parliamentary fences to bypass the military, parliamentary staff and protesters facing down soldiers on the night, and citizens continuing to protest in the following weeks, deploying everything from K-pop light sticks, shaved heads and funeral flowers. Protesters were jubilant after the weekend's impeachment vote, but as we explained, and protesters already know, the story is far from over.

Thankfully, if you want to continue following this story, Ground News is there to help. A website and app developed by a former NASA engineer on a mission to give readers an easy, data-driven, objective way to read the news. They pull in stories from all over the world and organise them by story. And every story comes with a quick visual breakdown of the political bias, factuality and ownership of all the sources reporting. All backed by ratings from three independent news monitoring organisations.

For instance, take the news of the impeachment. Right away you can see that the story had 735 outlets reporting on it. Of these, 35% lean left while 26% lean right. You can also swipe through some of the headlines to see just how different some of the reporting can be based on these biases, with left-leaning outlets focusing on public celebration and right-leaning outlets focusing on Yoon's alleged power-grabbing.

One of my favourite features of theirs is my news bias. It's basically a fitness tracker, but for news. It tracks my reading habits over time, my trends and political bias, the specific news outlets I read the most, even the specific topics I gravitate towards. It's been really helpful in minimising my personal blind spots.

Now, as an impartial news outlet, we're passionate about informing our viewers about bias and helping them to understand how it affects the media they consume. Ground News is very effective at this, showing you exactly how each side of the political divide covers each story you see online. And best of all, we're currently offering viewers 50% off their Vantage plan, which includes unlimited access to all of their amazing features like their Blindspot feed.

This is their biggest discount of the year. So go to ground.news forward slash TLDR, click the QR code here on screen, or use the link in the description to subscribe today.