President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea grew increasingly isolated on Friday, after the head of his ruling party came out in support of impeaching the president, and the country’s military said it would not follow any orders to reimpose martial law.
In a surprise about-face, the leader of the governing People Power Party, or P.P.P., called Mr. Yoon unfit to lead South Korea after his short-lived martial law decree earlier this week catapulted the democracy into turmoil.
“I think that President Yoon Suk Yeol should be suspended from office as soon as possible,” Han Dong-hoon said during an emergency party leadership meeting.
It was not clear how many members of the party shared Mr. Han’s view. But his comments increased the likelihood that the impeachment bill against Mr. Yoon would gain enough support to pass through the National Assembly.
Mr. Han joined opposition lawmakers in warning that if Mr. Yoon stays in office, he might try to impose martial law again in a desperate attempt to hold onto power. In a powerful rebuttal to Mr. Yoon, the defense ministry said that even if he did, the military would not follow. And the country’s special forces command, which joined Mr. Yoon’s ill-fated martial law, said it would not join another.
“I want to make it clear that it will never happen,” Lieutenant General Kwak Jong-geun said during an interview he gave to two opposition lawmakers that was broadcast live on YouTube on Friday, where he was asked about the possibility of another martial law attempt. “Even if I get such an order, I will reject it.”
A broader closed-door meeting of the P.P.P.’s 108 lawmakers took place inside the National Assembly but ended without reaching consensus on Mr. Yoon’s fate. Mr. Yoon, though expected at the meeting, didn’t show up. National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik said he could not guarantee the president’s safety as angry opposition members rallied at the Assembly’s entrance, chanting “Arrest Yoon Suk Yeol!”
An impeachment vote is scheduled for Saturday evening. At least eight votes from Mr. Yoon’s governing camp are needed to impeach the president.
If impeached, Mr. Yoon would be suspended from office until the Constitutional Court decides whether to reinstate or remove him.
The opposition proposed impeaching Mr. Yoon this week, arguing that he had committed “insurgency” and other anti-constitutional crimes when he declared martial law on Tuesday night. He banned all political activities and sent troops to take over the National Assembly. Legislation on martial law banned such acts, the opposition said in its impeachment bill formally submitted on Thursday.
Mr. Yoon’s surprise declaration of martial law lasted only six hours, until early Wednesday. He was forced to lift it after a vote in the Assembly to repeal the military rule. The short-lived episode, which the opposition likened to a failed “palace coup” by an extremely unpopular leader, triggered outrage across South Korea. Even if briefly, it also exposed the fragility of the hard-won democracy South Koreans have been proud of.
On Thursday, Mr. Han had said he opposed impeaching Mr. Yoon for fear of creating more national confusion. But he said he changed his mind as more details emerged about what happened in the hours after Mr. Yoon declared martial law, especially indications that Mr. Yoon sought to arrest key critics of his government, including Mr. Han himself.
On Friday he said, “There is fear that if President Yoon stays in office, he may repeat extreme actions like martial law.”
“If that happens, South Korea and its people will fall into a bigger crisis,” he said.
Hong Jang-won, a deputy chief of the National Intelligence Service, told lawmakers on Friday that after declaring martial law, Mr. Yoon told him to work with the military’s Defense Counterintelligence Command to “drag them all in,” according to the opposition lawmaker Kim Byung-kee, who attended the closed-door meeting.
According to Mr. Kim, Mr. Hong told lawmakers that Lt. Gen. Yeo In-hyong, the counterintelligence commander, had shared with Mr. Hong a list of people to locate and detain. They included: Mr. Woo, the speaker of the National Assembly; Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the biggest opposition party; and Mr. Han, the head of Mr. Yoon’s own governing party.
Mr. Hong also told the lawmakers that agents from counterintelligence command had planned to take these politicians to their headquarters in Gwacheon south of Seoul.
On Friday, the P.P.P.’s Mr. Han said he also had similar intelligence that the counterintelligence command had planned to detain key politicians in the name of rounding up “anti-state forces.” But when Mr. Han met with Mr. Yoon on Friday to discuss the crisis, the president denied having had such plans, his office said.
In the YouTube interview, Lt. Gen. Kwak, the special forces commander, said his units were not running arrest squads.
He said that Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun had instructed him to remove lawmakers from the Assembly hall, where the vote on repealing the martial law order was taking place. But he said he ignored the order.
“I knew I could be punished for disobedience,” Lt. Gen. Kwak said. “But I also thought such an order had legal problems and I told my troops not to go in there.”
Mr. Kim resigned after the martial law collapsed. He has since been barred by prosecutors from leaving the country. Opposition lawmakers asked the police to investigate Mr. Yoon and others involved in the declaration of martial law on charges of insurgency. If convicted on those charges, the mastermind of the insurgency faces either the death penalty or life imprisonment.
Mr. Yoon has made no public appearances since withdrawing his martial law decree. A survey by Gallup Korea showed Mr. Yoon’s approval ratings plummeted to a record low of 13 percent in the wake of his martial law decision, dragging down his party’s popularity as well.
The impeachment of Mr. Yoon would strengthen the position of the opposition, which has long accused him of incompetence and abuse of power. But it would thrust his already divided party and Mr. Han’s own political future into deeper uncertainty. Political commentators have said the relationship between Mr. Yoon and Mr. Han has irreparably soured in recent months.
Both Mr. Yoon and Mr. Han were star prosecutors before entering politics. Mr. Yoon appointed Mr. Han as his justice minister and helped make him the chairman of the P.P.P. But Mr. Han, once the most trusted ally of Mr. Yoon, has become one of his most bitter enemies since he started bickering with the president over how to handle allegations of corruption involving the first lady, Kim Keon Hee. Recently, they have often ignored each other even when they sat nearby in public events.
The post Opposition to South Korea’s President Grows as He Faces Impeachment appeared first on New York Times.
