It has taken South Koreans 12 nights of protests in the bitter cold to achieve their goal, for President Yoon Suk Yeol’s political career to take one step closer to the end.
On Saturday the National Assembly voted to pass a motion to impeach the president.
There’s still a long road ahead to reach impeachment though.
The Constitutional Court has up to six months to decide whether to impeach him. In the meantime, Yoon’s powers have been handed to Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who is now acting president.
Last Saturday’s attempt to get enough votes for impeachment failed. The ruling party boycotted the vote.
This time round the opposition gathered just enough votes for it to pass. But it was close. They needed 200 votes. They received 204.
So, Yoon’s ruling party, the People Power Party (PPP) still overwhelmingly voted against impeachment, even though many of its politicians condemned the attempt to impose martial law.
The PPP has made a calculated decision to oppose impeachment and aim to prevent another election, which they would surely lose.
This will not do them any favours with the South Korean public. President Yoon’s popularity has dropped from very bad to even worse. It is around 11%.
There is now a path forward to the next stage of the country’s political crisis, and it travels through the court.
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South Korea’s president impeached – what happens now?
In the meantime, a caretaker government will try to steady South Korea’s badly shaken political foundations.
But the damage has been severe.
The memory of troops on the street, helicopters in the sky and politicians standing up to special forces soldiers is now seared into the memory of its people, young and old.
Having wrestled their democracy back from the brink South Koreans are holding on tightly to it, bolstering it with demonstrations, celebrations and a whole-of-society movement.
How long they can keep this up while the country is mired in chaos is unclear.
