In early December, South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol shocked the nation by declaring martial law.
Friday’s decision to officially remove him from office was an enormous relief for many South Koreans. But the country is still politically divided and will now move toward a presidential election in 60 days.
John Delury is a visiting professor with John Cabot University in Rome and historian of East Asia.
“This is textbook separation of powers, what happened here,” he said.
In his view, the court’s decision was a win for South Korea’s democracy.
“A president way overstepped the line of his powers. The other branch, the Legislature immediately sprung into action, with civic support, and impeached him. And then, the third branch, the judiciary, in its independent way, based on the law, reviewed the process and said the National Assembly followed the Constitution in the way they impeached the president. The president had violated the Constitution.”
Delury said that the Constitutional Court sets a high bar for removing a president.
It required six of eight judges to rule in favor of impeachment. But Friday’s decision was unanimous and determined that Yoon had “violated the basic principles of a democratic state.”
“This is actually one of those moments where not only South Koreans, but given the state of our world globally, the public can say, ‘OK, here’s a case of old-school liberal democracy actually working,” Delury said.
But there could be more twists and turns ahead — because South Koreans are bitterly divided when it comes to politics.
Yoon won the last election in 2022 by a single percentage point.
Members of his conservative base have been out in the streets protesting for weeks, accusing the liberal opposition of being traitors and agents of China and North Korea.
Delury added that Yoon still faces criminal charges for his martial law declaration.
“A big question going forward is what happens to that hardcore, you could say ‘alt-right following,’ of Mr. Yoon? Are they absorbed into the mainstream conservative party in one way or another, or do they remain out there in the streets on media platforms, especially on YouTube, advancing these radical arguments?”
South Koreans will now move toward a snap presidential election, to be held within two months. The presumed front-runner is Lee Jae-myung, the head of the opposition Democratic Party.
And he’s far ahead in the polls, but that could easily change after the conservative party decides on a candidate.
Victor Cha is a political science professor at Georgetown — he also served as the director of Asian Affairs at the National Security Council under former President George W. Bush.
“The next 60 days will be incredibly intense and all of the energy that was going to the impeachment in Korea will now be focused on this campaign,” Cha said.
Korean politicians haven’t spent much energy in their campaigns on the alliance with the US, because it’s so broadly popular.
But Cha said that could change this time around.
“It’s usually like it is in most places, domestic politics, the economy. But I think it will figure in this campaign because the candidates will be asked how they’re going to deal with these Trump tariffs.”
South Korea is vulnerable to tariffs because its economy relies so heavily on exports and global trade.
On top of that, the government in Seoul has been bogged down with this political crisis for months.
Recently, South Korean trade officials met with their counterparts from China and Japan, for the first time in five years.