Impeached leader Yoon Suk Yeol made history this week as the first sitting South Korean president to be arrested, ending a weeks-long standoff. But analysts say that the country’s political crisis is not over yet.
Yoon said he was cooperating to stop “bloodshed” but used his right to remain silent and analysts say his lawyers used “every legal means in the book” against the rebellion investigation into his ill-fated declaration of martial law. Using the strategy.
He also faces a separate Constitutional Court case that could finalize his impeachment and removal from office.
Here is the state of play:
President behind bars?
Yoon, who remains the current head of South Korea, is being held in the Seoul Detention Center.
Yoon’s lawyers have said the investigation lacks legality and challenged the legality of the arrest, and Yoon himself is refusing to speak – even as investigators address him as “Mr. President”.
“It appears that Yoon’s team is pursuing every legal tactic to prolong the situation,” Lee Jong-soo, a law professor at Yonsei University, told AFP.
Due to the complexity of the investigation and the number of different authorities involved, “it doesn’t seem like it can be done quickly,” Lee said.
Yoon is “charged with acts of rebellion… one of the few crimes for which even a president can be prosecuted,” lawyer Chu Yun-hee said.
The trial could take months, Chu said, but a separate impeachment trial could move more quickly.
And impeachment?
Eight judges in the country’s Constitutional Court are now considering whether to uphold Yun’s impeachment and remove him from office. Six should rule in favor.
They will review whether Yun’s martial law declaration was unconstitutional and illegal.
Their decision – which could come as early as February or as late as June – is the only official way to remove Yun from office.
Vladimir Tikhonov, a professor of Korean studies at the University of Oslo, told AFP the court was ruling on “a constitutional process” while the investigation is a criminal investigation.
“Both of these processes proceed at different levels,” he said.
Only an impeachment trial can determine whether “the president can no longer be trusted in office,” Lee, a professor at Yonsei Law School, told AFP.
“Even if Yoon is acquitted in a future criminal trial, he could still be removed from office based on the impeachment decision,” he said.
What about elections?
Politics expert Park Sang-byung told AFP that if Yoon is removed from office, new elections would have to be held within 60 days – which would likely be won by the opposition.
But fresh elections are unlikely to resolve South Korea’s deeply rooted political tensions and, in fact, could lead to “more intense conflict,” Park warned.
“Even if a new presidential election takes place, I fear the already divided political landscape is likely to worsen.”
Yun’s party will likely try to weaken the new opposition president and even impeach him, making “bipartisan compromise increasingly difficult,” Park said.
And a party like this?
Yoon is the second consecutive conservative president to be impeached, after Park Geun-hye, who was removed from office in 2017 due to a corruption scandal.
Following that political disaster, Yoon’s People Power Party was rebranded and, after five years in opposition, returned to power thanks to its widely understood role as South Korea’s traditional conservative bloc. Was able to.
But under Yoon, “there are concerns that it has been co-opted by far-right elements since his declaration of martial law and his impeachment,” Lee Jae-mook, a political science professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, told AFP. told. ,
“If this trend continues, it risks alienating centrist voters and becoming out of touch with public sentiment. While this may have short-term benefits, it could have harmful effects in the long run.”
Economic crisis?
Yun’s arrest has also caused economic turmoil in Asia’s fourth largest economy.
Consumer sentiment fell to its lowest level since the COVID-19 pandemic, the South Korean dollar fell against the dollar and the country’s unemployment rate hit its highest since 2021.
“It is still difficult to determine the impact of political uncertainties, as the impact will depend on how long the conflict continues,” Bank of Korea Governor Ri Chang-yong told reporters on Wednesday.
“The fourth quarter of last year was affected by the martial law situation. Growth rates remain highly uncertain after the first quarter of this year,” he said.
But if the Constitutional Court acts quickly and “the political instability is resolved quickly, the negative economic impact is likely to be minimal,” said Park Sang-in, an economics professor at Seoul National University.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
