South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said early Wednesday local time that he would lift the martial law he had declared just hours earlier, acceding to legislators who voted late Tuesday to block the decree.
By early Wednesday, the country’s cabinet had passed a measure approving the reversal. Still, opposition lawmakers called for Yoon to resign or be impeached, while striking members of South Korea’s largest labor unions gathered in downtown Seoul on Wednesday morning to demand his resignation.
South Korea’s main opposition party is calling for President Yoon Suk Yeol to resign or face impeachment. In a statement, senior Democratic Party member of parliament Park Chan-dae said his party will seek Yoon’s impeachment if he does not resign immediately, saying Yoon’s move to declare martial law undermined the constitution and democracy.
The president had declared martial law in a surprise late-night address on Tuesday, citing a motion by the Democratic Party, which has a majority in parliament, to impeach top prosecutors and reject a government budget proposal.
In an extraordinary overnight showdown, furious lawmakers forced their way past soldiers into parliament to vote to strike down the martial law decree.
When martial law was last declared in South Korea, in 1980, it came after a coup that installed a military dictatorship.
After pro-democracy activists, mostly university students, protested in the city of Gwangju, special forces responded violently, killing about 200 people with machine guns and clubs.
The South Korean president’s chief of staff and more than 10 senior secretaries to the president have submitted their resignations, according to the president’s office.
President Yoon Suk Yeol has not yet resigned despite growing calls for him to step down over his late-night martial law decree.
Yoon Suk Yeol, representing the conservative People Power Party, has served as president of South Korea since 2022. He won the election by a razor-thin margin, pulling ahead of rival Lee by less than one percentage point.
Yoon was a newcomer to politics, having spent the previous 27 years of his career as a prosecutor. Since taking office — succeeding the liberal President Moon Jae-in — he has faced a raft of challenges, from the perma-threat of North Korea to rising tensions between South Korea’s major partners, the US and China — as well as plummeting birth rates.
He has long taken a tough stance on North Korea, a shift from his predecessor, Moon, who favored dialogue and peaceful reconciliation. Yoon lambasted this approach as “subservient.” Yoon instead promised to bulk up South Korea’s military, even hinting he would launch a preemptive strike if he saw signs of an offensive launch against Seoul.
In his announcement to declare martial law late Tuesday, he accusing the country’s main opposition party of sympathizing with North Korea and anti-state activities
But he has faced political battles at home, sparring with the opposition Democratic Party, which has repeatedly impeached ministers and frustrated the government’s fiscal plans.
Yoon has seen his popularity ratings plunge since he took office — thanks to a series of scandals and controversies that even prompted hundreds of thousands to call for his impeachment.
South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index opened down 2% Wednesday morning local time but quickly recovered. It was last trading down 1.0%.
The South Korean currency, the won, also strengthened against the US dollar after plunging overnight to a 2-year low after martial law was declared.
Economists at investment bank Citi wrote in a Wednesday research note that the negative impact to the economy and financial market could be “short-lived.”
By Agencies
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