When Yoon Sak Yeol was running for president, he had written the word “king” in his palm. The Koreans dismissed it as a shamanistic ritual that reflected his desire for a top government office and ridiculed it.
However, after taking office in May 2022, it didn't take long for Yoon to see an authoritarian streak.
Soon he moved the presidential room from an elegant blue house to a monotonous military building. When he turned 63 in December 2023, his security team sang a song to honor “The President was sent from heaven,” and described his “845,280 minutes” when it comes to “A Time Blessed.” Two months later, university students who protested Yun's decision to cut government budgets for scientific research were monkeyed and dragged away by the president's bodyguard. When journalists released what they called “fake news,” prosecutors stormed homes and newsrooms to gather evidence.
Yoon kept pushing the envelope. He made a fatal mistake. On December 3rd, he declared martial law, threatening democracy, a deeply important part of South Korea's life.
For Koreans, democracy was never given to them. It fought and won through decades of struggle with authoritarian leaders, at the expense of torture, imprisonment and bloodshed. All major political milestones in Korea — the end of a dictatorship, the introduction of free elections, the expulsion of abusive leaders — were achieved after citizens took them to the streets.
So when people saw the troops by Yun, who was raiding the National Assembly to force the National Assembly, their response was immediate. However, unlike those who fought government oppression since the 1980s in the 1950s, the Koreans who have been protesting in recent months have protected democratic institutions.
The current constitution was written after the enormous democratic uprising in 1987, giving the Parliament the authority to vote for martial law and President Murders each. The constitutional court, established under that constitution, had to decide whether to remove or revive the president, which was each. And the democratically elected leaders under that constitution imprisoned those who had previously held power through military force.
Younger generations, including the Air Tro squad that sent Mr. Yoon to seize the assembly in December, learned their history through box-office films and novelists like Nobel Prize winner Hankan.
On December 3rd, the army hesitated before blocking them with naked hands. This has given the time for lawmakers, including some members of Yoon's own party, to gather and vote to lift the martial law order. Congress then fired him each on December 14th.
And on Friday, the eight-person justice in the Constitutional Court unanimously endorsed its bluff each, including justice appointed by Mr. Yun or his party, putting an end to his military uprising.
For one observer, these events were a victory for a democratic institution created in the late 1980s. “Yoon's response to the attempted coup showed the maturity of South Korean democracy. First of all, the resilience of civil society responded immediately and greatly to oppose the coup, with the passion of Korean youth who were not living in the 1980s. Stanford University.
“The fact that it was a unanimous decision by the Constitutional Court, in which a conservative appointee took part in the decision, was a very important expression of not only the clarity of the case, but also the ability to overcome ideological polarization,” Snyder said.
Yoon's power grab also exposed the vulnerability of South Korean democracy. If such a thing could happen in a country that has long been considered an exemplary case of democratization in Asia, scholars warned that it could happen elsewhere.
Despite his removal, the deep polarization that led to Yoon's declaration of martial law continues. The partisan struggle on the left and right could intensify in the next two months as the country lurks towards the presidential election.
However, over the past four months it has also shown the resilience of South Korea's democracy.
Before Yoon's appearance, few Koreans thought it was possible to return to military rule, a peaceful democracy known worldwide for cars, smartphones and K-dramas. Many of those who have joined the protests calling for Yoon's ouster in recent weeks said they were more proud of their democracy than the cultural exports that the boy band BTS and Netflix hit “Squid Game.”
When Yoon hurt his pride, he chose a fight he couldn't win. During the rally, people shared a video clip of former President Kim Dae Joon, an iconic figure in South Korea's democratization struggle.
“Democracy is not free,” Kim said in the clip. “You have to shed blood, sweat, tears for it.”
If the Constitutional Court voted to revive Yoon, South Korea would have seen “second wave of democratization movements” and “second Gwangju,” said Chougabue, a well-known Korean journalist who has covered the country's political evolution, referring to the brutal restraints on the walls of the Southern Western Law of 1980 since 1971.
“We shared martial law, but Yoon Sak Yeol was the first president to send troops to Congress,” Cho said.
Yoon was once a hero among Koreans. He built his national image as an uncompromising prosecutor when he helped imprison two former presidents for corruption. However, he proved miserable as a politician – unable to engage in the granting and commitment of compromise with the opposition parties that controlled the Parliament.
He was accused of filling presidential staff with staff that were too ti-sick to speak up. He was called “Mr. 59 minutes.” He rarely apologized for his wife's scandals or even fatal disasters. He used his veto to kill the opposition bill. The opposition slashed his budget and each fired up an unprecedented number of political appointees in his government.
“Players who are busy playing on the field don't look at the electronic scoreboard,” Yoon once said when asked about his disastrous recognition rating.
This attitude allowed him to promote unpopular efforts, such as improving relations with Japan and significantly increasing the number of doctors. But even many who sympathized with his struggle against the opposition did not see martial law coming.
“The University of Connecticut has made it a point to learn more about the world,” said Alexis Dudden, a history professor at the University of Connecticut. “Yoon and his advisors missed the mark to read Korea today in many obvious ways.”
