Impeachment of South Korea’s president fails

South Korea’s president escaped impeachment on Saturday after most lawmakers from the ruling party boycotted a vote despite mounting pressure and mass protests.

After Yoon Suk-Yeol imposed a short-lived martial law for six hours on Tuesday evening, which was lifted after 190 lawmakers voted to reject the move, opposition parties filed an impeachment motion and scheduled a session to vote on it on Saturday.

The opposition holds 192 out of 300 seats in the national assembly but they needed 200 votes to pass the motion.

In a day filled with dramatic developments, most of the ruling People Power Party’s (PPP) 108 lawmakers marched out of the chamber as voting on the impeachment motion began.

Only one lawmaker, Ahn Cheol-soo, who had revealed his intention to vote in favour of impeaching Mr Yoon, remained in his seat.

As opposition lawmakers began to call each PPP lawmaker by name, one, Kim Yea-ji, returned to cast her vote. And 30 minutes later, Kim Sang-wook, another PPP lawmaker, also came back to vote.

While waiting for more PPP lawmakers to return to the chamber, Woo Won-shik, the national assembly speaker, described their boycott as “a great shame”.

“Public interest in this matter is very high. Korea’s future is at stake. It is a great shame that we cannot even establish a vote,” he said.

Eventually, at 9.26pm local time, Mr Woo reluctantly banged his gavel and closed the session. The impeachment motion failed because only 195 lawmakers cast their votes.

The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) has vowed to continue efforts to impeach Yoon “every week”.

“We’ve decided to break up special sessions on a weekly basis and continue [reintroducing the motion] in plenary sessions,” Yoon Jong-kun, a DP spokesperson, told reporters on Saturday night.

Saturday night’s outcome came after Mr Yoon apologised for invoking martial law as he bowed during his first televised address since Tuesday.

“The decision was made from the desperation of me as the president. But it gave the people anxiety and inconveniences. I am very sorry and apologise to you,” he said in a roughly two-minute address.

Mr Yoon also reassured the public that he wouldn’t declare martial law for the second time despite widespread concerns. “There are talks that martial law might be imposed again, but I state clearly: there will never be anything like a second constitutional crisis,” he said before bowing to the camera to end the televised address.

Opposition parties quickly condemned his brief televised apology, describing it as “disappointing”.

“There is no way to resolve the situation other than the president’s immediate resignation or an early departure through impeachment,” said Jae-myung, DP’s leader, during a press conference after Mr Yoon’s address.

Apart from criticism from opposition parties, Han Dong-Hoon, PPP’s leader, also said the president could no longer perform his duties normally and that it was “inevitable” that he would have to resign.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered outside the national assembly to call for the impeachment of Mr Yoon, despite the sub-zero temperature.

“He waited days to acknowledge his serious wrongdoings in front of the public and he fails to convince us that he plans to leave office as soon as he should,” Keunchol Jung, a 40-year-old artist, told The Telegraph.

Others say Mr Yoon should be given the harshest possible punishment for posing serious threats to South Korea’s democracy. “He tried to abuse his presidential power and turn South Korea into an authoritarian country, so he should definitely be put into jail as soon as possible,” said Cho Hyun-Sung, a 43-year-old engineer.

More than an hour after the national assembly closed Saturday night’s session, dozens of protesters marched to the ruling party’s headquarter and chanted slogans that called on PPP lawmakers to “come out”.

“The failure of today’s vote will lead to more pressure on Yoon to resign and more pressure on conservative lawmakers to vote for an impeachment that over 70 per cent of South Koreans support,” said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, an expert on South Korean politics at King’s College London.

He said if the process to impeach Mr Yoon drags on, it may cause more ruling party lawmakers to vote in favour of his impeachment. These lawmakers “will have to think not only about South Korean democracy but also about their own political careers if they continue to be seen as siding with a president that has lost all his legitimacy,” Mr Pacheco Pardo said.