South Korea’s Ongoing Political Crisis in 2025
27 January 2025
The political crisis in South Korea triggered by President Yoon Suk-yeol’s bizarre declaration of martial law on December 3 appears to be deepening rather than ending, writes Philip Turner.
After weeks of tense stand-off, prosecutors finally succeeded in taking Yoon into detention last week. But his subsequent formal arrest sparked a violent attack by his supporters on Seoul’s Western District Court in the early hours of Sunday morning (January 19), resulting in injuries to 9 police officers and 87 arrests.
The crisis risks doing long-term damage to a major western ally, a friend of New Zealand, and a country long seen as a beacon of liberal values in Asia, just as the region girds its loins for President Trump’s second administration.
Scenes of enraged Yoon supporters breaking windows, deploying fire extinguishers, invading a courthouse and threatening judicial officials called to mind memories of the assault on the US Congress by Trump supporters on 6 January 2021. The scale of the events in Seoul is smaller and the analogy inexact, but the overlap of images and language underlines the strain this crisis is putting on Korea’s democratic institutions. The longer the crisis goes on, the harder it will be to find a smooth return to normalcy.
Last week one of Yoon’s lawyers claimed that “we are at war”. Like Trump supporters in 2021, at least some of Yoon’s supporters seem to take him literally.
Yoon claims to be supporting democracy, alleging - without evidence – that “communists” (presumably Chinese) and North Korean forces are working with the Korean opposition against his regime.
Fake on-line news stories appear to be aggravating the political tensions. Picking up a line from Yoon, some maintain that the National Assembly elections held last April (which resulted in a sound defeat of the ruling party) were rigged. ‘Stop the Steal’ slogans have appeared among Yoon supporters alongside US flags. Korean media report that creators of fake online news are deliberately winding up Yoon supporters in order to attract donations.
Yoon faces a bleak future. He confronts two separate legal processes: an impeachment trial, being heard by the Constitutional Court, which could result in him being permanently removed from office; and a criminal investigation into alleged abuse of power and insurrection, which could lead to lengthy imprisonment.
Arrest means he is already experiencing prison life. Since Sunday (January 19) he inhabits a 10 square metre cell, wears a prison uniform, sleeps on the floor (albeit heated), and is not even allowed visits by his wife.
One might hope that in his enforced leisure Yoon is reflecting that, aside from a few inside advisors, he has no one to blame but himself. Korea has seen presidents impeached before – most recently Park Geun-hye whom Yoon himself helped to remove from office in 2016 as head of investigations in the special prosecutor team. Yet her offences (a range of sometimes obscure corruption charges) pale in comparison to Yoon’s behaviour. His resort to martial law appears to have been no more than a desperate attempt to retain power in the face of a noisy but perfectly legitimate opposition majority in the National Assembly.
Even after the overturning of martial law by the National Assembly, Yoon has continued to behave provocatively and irresponsibly, appearing to position himself above the law and showing scant sign of seeking to engage with the broad population. He has refused to recognize the legitimacy of the laws and institutions (such as the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials) deployed against him, refused to answer questions or respond to criminal summons, and used his personal security squad to resist detention.
Speaker Woo Won Shik signing the resolution to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol in December 2024. Image: Wikimedia Commons/National Assembly of South Korea
Experts and Korean opinion appear to agree that impeachment is warranted, and a guilty verdict is expected – though not assured. Even conservative newspapers have heavily criticized Yoon both for the martial law declaration and for his boorish behaviour since.
Curiously, however, after falling sharply in the month after martial law, support for Yoon’s party, the People’s Power Party, has risen in the last week, and now surpasses the opposition. Online misinformation is probably responsible for some of this. But commentators also point to a sense among voters that some of the opposition’s language and tactics (such as impeaching Acting President Han Duck-soo as well as Yoon) may have gone too far. Yoon is not alone in behaving badly. The leader of the largest opposition party, Lee Jae-myung, has already been handed a one-year suspended sentence for corruption (now under appeal), while Cho Kuk, the leader of what used to be the third largest party in Korea, is already behind bars, also on corruption charges.
Given these manifold indications of failure and corruption by the elites, many voters simply want to see an end to the drama and a return to more normal governance. Their frustration was only enhanced by the tragic news of Korea’ s worst ever air crash at Muan in late December, which killed 179 people.
The political crisis is already taking a toll on the economy. Unemployment surged in December; the Korean won is at a 15-year low; and this week the Bank of Korea lowered its growth forecast for 2025 while warning that the economy had failed to reach its 2024 GDP forecast of 2.2%.
On the plus side, Korea’s institutions – in contrast to its leaders - have so far responded well to the crisis. The head of the presidential guard was persuaded to resign after initially defending Yoon against detention. Seoul remains stable and safe, though filled with passionate demonstrators on both sides.
The scale of the crisis and investigations would be tough for any democracy to deal with, let alone one that is barely 40 years old. A president and an acting president have both been impeached; the Defence Minister is under arrest and has attempted suicide; and a number of other senior leaders from defence and the police are also under investigation.
Koreans themselves are justifiably worried about who is in charge of the country and whether it is capable of responding effectively to any external shocks, whether from North Korea or the US.
While Yoon is responsible for the current mess, it is clear that the crisis reflects wider systemic challenges. Korea’s best-in-class democratic structures are undermined by a persistent political culture of partisanship, lawfare and revenge. Under pressure, Yoon and his close peers have displayed instincts of authoritarianism that seem to date from their formative years under dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s. As a former Chief Prosecutor, Yoon knows better than anyone that all Korea’s democratically elected presidents save one have either gone to jail or committed suicide. All political parties pursue their opponents through ruthless judicial harassment – forcing incumbents to do the same to pre-empt their own inevitable legal cases once they leave office.
Just after Yoon's arrest in early January 2025, protestors pushed back the police barriers in an attempt to block Yoon's car from leaving.
Political partisanship is reinforced by generational divide: baby boomers born before 1964 (like Yoon) have traditionally focused on building a strong economy, defending the country against North Korea, and securing a stable livelihood for their families. Those in their fifties and younger are less concerned about the threat from the north, and more interested in fairness, equality, the cost of living and getting a job.
Faced with these structural tensions, Yoon has demonstrably failed to provide the sort of leadership the country needs. As a lifelong prosecutor he shows no sign of understanding the essential give and take that democratic politics demands. Rather – and particularly in crisis – he has slipped all too easily into the language of power and hierarchy, asserting the authority of his office, demanding loyalty from subordinates, and painting any opposition as insurrectionist. He went into office with a brand based on liberal democratic values. It is beyond ironic that he is likely to go down in history as Korea’s first president to be arrested – on a charge of insurrection.
Banner image: Wikimedia Commons.
Asia Media Centre