It is now almost 11.30pm in Seoul, so it is time for us to close this blog on a historic day for South Korea. For a full report of what happened today you can read our correspondents’ piece here:
And we also have this explainer on what happens next:
Thanks for joining us.
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Yoon is the third South Korean president impeached while in office.
In 2016, parliament impeached Park Geun-hye, the country’s first female president, over a corruption scandal. The Constitutional Court upheld her impeachment and dismissed her from office.
In 2004, President Roh Moo-hyun was impeached at parliament over an alleged election law violation but the court later overturned his impeachment and restored his presidential powers.
The day so far
It is approaching 10.30pm in Seoul. Here are the day’s main developments so far:
South Korea’s parliament has voted to impeach the president, Yoon Suk Yeol, almost two weeks after his short-lived declaration of martial law plunged the country into its worst political crisis for decades
Officials said that at least 200,000 protesters had taken to the streets of Seoul in support of the impeachment, and celebrations followed the vote
Yoon, who was immediately suspended, called on South Koreans to support the acting president but vowed to continue fighting for his political future as the impeachment process enters its next stage.
Prime minister Han Duck-soo, the country’s No. 2 official who has taken over presidential powers, ordered the military to bolster its security posture to prevent North Korea from launching provocations by miscalculation
The US ambassador to the South Korea has said America’s “commitment to peace and security on the peninsula and in the region is unwavering” amid the chaos of the impeachment vote
• This post was amended on 14 December 2024. An earlier version mistakenly referred to the Republic of Korea (the official name of South Korea) as the “People’s Republic of South Korea”. Our quoting of the US ambassador also contained typographical errors, which have been corrected.
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US makes 'ironclad' commitment to South Korean alliance amid chaos
The US ambassador to the Republic of Korea has said America’s “commitment to peace and security on the peninsula and in the region is unwavering” amid the chaos of the impeachment vote.
Philip S. Goldberg said he had met with Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul on Saturday after the National Assembly vote.
“As always, the United States supports the Republic of Korea and the democratic and constitutional process here and stands with its people”, Goldberg said.
“Foreign Minister Cho and I reaffirmed that our alliance is and remains ironclad.”
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Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, the country’s No. 2 official, who took over presidential powers later Saturday, ordered the military to bolster its security posture to prevent North Korea from launching provocations by miscalculation.
Han asked the foreign minister to inform other countries that South Korea’s major external policies remain unchanged, and the finance minister to work to minimize potential negative impacts on the economy by the political turmoil, according to Han’s office.
South Korea’s executive power is concentrated with the president, but the prime minister leads the country if the president becomes incapacitated. Han is a seasoned official and has previously held a string of top government posts such as trade and finance and was the ambassador to the U.S. He also served as a prime minister from 2007-2008.
EU calls for 'swift and orderly resolution' to South Korea's crisis
Following Yoon’s impeachment on Saturday, a spokeswoman for the European Union called for a “swift and orderly resolution” to the political crisis in South Korea in line with the country’s constitution.
South Korean lawmakers on Saturday impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed martial law bid, with the opposition declaring a “victory of the people”. Out of 300 lawmakers, 204 voted to impeach the president on allegations of insurrection while 85 voted against.
The vote capped over a week of intense political drama in the democratic South following Yoon’s failed attempt to impose martial law on December 3.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of the capital Seoul in rival rallies for and against Yoon on Saturday.
Yoon Suk Yeol vowed to ‘step aside’ after the national assembly voted to remove him from office. The vote came two weeks after his short-lived declaration of martial law, which plunged the country into political crisis. Thousands celebrated outside the parliament as the vote was announced:
Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment is unlikely to end South Korea’s political turmoil, analysts warned.
“It is not even the beginning of the end,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
Opposition leader Lee, who narrowly lost to Yoon in 2022 and is favoured to win an election to replace him, is also in legal jeopardy, with a conviction on appeal and other rulings pending that could disqualify him from office.
“So before the final race in the polls, there will be a race in the courts,” Easley said.
South Korea’s acting president Han Duck-soo vowed on Saturday to leave no vacuum in state affairs.
In a public address after the parliament passed a motion to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol, Han said that the entire cabinet would work hard to maintain trust with the United States, Japan and other partners.
The jubilant crowds outside the national assembly have dispersed and everything is being packed up. The streets look remarkably clean. In a characteristic display of Korean civic-mindedness, protesters tidied up after themselves, collecting rubbish and ensuring everything was back in place. The same is true at K-pop concerts, where fans leave venues spotless. And tonight felt very much like a concert. K-pop light sticks - a symbol of the movement to impeach Yoon - are now being sold at a discount.
The vote to impeach South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, was a dramatic fall from grace for the conservative leader, who must now suffer the ignominy of being forced from office well before the end of his five-year term.
But the vote on Saturday in the national assembly, where the impeachment motion just exceeded the required two-thirds majority after 12 members of Yoon’s party sided with the opposition, does not mean his presidency has ended.
Attention will now turn to South Korea’s constitutional court, which faces unprecedented challenges in handling Yoon’s impeachment. Will it remove Yoon from office or reject impeachment?
Thousands celebrated outside parliament as the impeachment was announced, two weeks after the president Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived declaration of martial law, which plunged the country into its worst political crisis for decades. The prime minister and now acting president, Han Duck-soo, vowed to ‘ensure stable governance’ after the announcement:
South Korea's alliance with the US 'remains unchanged' after impeachment
South Korea’s foreign minister said the country’s foreign policy based on its alliance with U.S. would remain unchanged after President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached on Saturday, the ministry said.
South Korean senior diplomats met ambassadors from the United States, Japan and China to explain the situation on Yoon’s impeachment, the ministry said in separate statements.
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Opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung told protesters near parliament that they should fight together so Yoon was removed as quickly as possible. “You, the people, made it. You are writing a new history,” he told the jubilant crowds, who had braved subfreezing temperatures to attend the rally.
Protesters backing Yoon’s impeachment leapt for joy near parliament at the news and waved colourful LED sticks as music pumped out. By contrast, a rally of Yoon supporters quickly emptied following the news.
Yoon is the second conservative president in a row to be impeached in South Korea. Park Geun-hye was removed from office in 2017. Yoon survived a first impeachment vote last weekend, when his party largely boycotted the vote, depriving parliament of a quorum.
“Although I am stopping for now, the journey I have walked with the people over the past two and a half years toward the future must never come to a halt. I will never give up,” Yoon said.
South Korea’s ruling party leader Han Dong-hoon said he took seriously the result of Saturday’s vote in parliament to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Despite calls by some party lawmakers to step down amid splits in the party, Han said he would continue his duty.
South Korea’s acting defence minister, Kim Seon-ho, called on the military to maintain preparedness, the ministry said on Saturday.
He ordered commanding officers to work promptly to stabilise their troop commands, the ministry said in a statement after parliament passed a motion to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Impeached president vows to 'step aside' in televised address
South Korea’s impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol on Saturday said he would “step aside” after parliament voted to remove him from office, urging an end to “politics of excess and confrontation”.
“Though I must now step aside for a while, the journey toward the future... must never come to a stop,” he said in a televised address.
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A Seoul police official told AFP at least 200,000 people had massed outside parliament in support of removing the president.
Choi Jung-ha, 52, danced in the street after the vote.
“Isn’t it amazing that we, the people, have pulled this off together?” she told AFP.
“I am 100 percent certain the Constitutional Court will side with the impeachment.”
On the other side of Seoul near Gwanghwamun square, police estimated 30,000 had rallied in support of Yoon, blasting patriotic songs and waving South Korean and American flags.
“Yoon had no choice but to declare martial law. I approve of every decision he has made as president,” supporter Choi Hee-sun, 62, told AFP before the vote.
The last South Korean leader to have been toppled in a similar way was Park Geun-hye in December 2016, who was impeached by Parliament in a decision confirmed in March 2017 by the Constitutional Court, leading to her indictment and imprisonment.
Geun-hye, president since 2013, is the daughter of former dictator Park Chung-hee, she was the first woman president of South Korea and had presented herself as incorruptible.
But she was accused of receiving or requesting tens of millions of dollars from conglomerates, including Samsung. Additional accusations included sharing classified documents, putting artists critical of her policies on a “blacklist”, and dismissing officials who opposed her.
Park was sentenced in 2021 to 20 years in prison and slapped with heavy fines. But at the end of that year, she was pardoned by her successor, Moon Jae-in.
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South Korean PM vows to 'ensure stable governance'
South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo on Saturday vowed to “ensure stable governance” after the country’s parliament voted to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol.
“I will devote all my strength and efforts to ensure stable governance,” Han, who becomes the country’s interim leader in Yoon’s place, told reporters.
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South Korea’s parliament has voted to impeach the president, Yoon Suk Yeol, almost two weeks after his short-lived declaration of martial law plunged the country into its worst political crisis for decades.
In dramatic scenes at the national assembly in Seoul, 204 lawmakers voted for an opposition motion to impeach Yoon, while an estimated 200,000 protesters outside demanded he be thrown out of office.
Saturday was the second opportunity in a week the assembly’s lawmakers had to begin the process of ousting Yoon, whose approval ratings have plummeted to 11%.
Read our full report with Raphael Rashid in Seoul and Justin McCurry in Tokyo:
South Korean Prime Minister Han Duk-soo said on Saturday that he would do his best to run the government stably after the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol.
“My heart is very heavy” Han, who will become acting president as Yoon’s presidential powers are suspended, told reporters after parliament approved the impeachment motion.
As a journalist, I breathed a sigh of relief when the impeachment vote result was announced. I have covered South Korea for the past decade, and the martial law declaration sent chills through Seoul’s press corps, including the foreign media.
When we received news that media would be controlled, my colleagues and I faced a terrifying prospect. That night, in newsrooms across the country, journalists kept broadcasting and writing despite the explicit threat of censorship. We knew that if the declaration had stood, journalism would have been one of its first casualties.
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Pictures show people celebrating after South Korean parliament passed a second impeachment motion against President Yoon Suk Yeol over his martial law decree following a vote, during a rally calling for the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol, who declared martial law, which was reversed hours later, in front of the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea.
Human Rights Watch welcomed the vote to impeach Yoon. “Today’s impeachment of President Yoon over his shocking attempt to declare martial law serves as a reminder as to how close democratic South Korea came to the brink of martial law, recalling the country’s dark history of military dictatorship,” Simon Henderson, HRW’s deputy Asia director, said in a statement.
“Instead, the people of South Korea and lawmakers have stood up and fought to protect their democracy and human rights. The impeachment proceedings highlight how checks and balances are essential in stopping abuses of power and supporting the rule of law.”
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Yoon’s presidential powers and duties to be suspended
Yoon’s presidential powers and duties will be suspended after the copies of a document on the impeachment are delivered to him and to the Constitutional Court.
The court has up to 180 days to determine whether to dismiss Yoon as president or restore his powers.
If he’s thrown out of office, a national election to choose his successor must be held within 60 days.
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South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol impeached over attempt to impose martial law
South Korea’s National Assembly members have voted to impeach president Yoon Suk Yeol over his attempt to impose martial law.
The National Assembly passed the motion by 204 to 85 votes. Three abstained, with eight votes nullified.
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National assembly staffers are waiting outside the doors of the main chamber. They have created a corridor so the lawmakers they work can exit smoothly after the vote.
What happens if the impeachment vote passes?
For the motion to pass, two thirds of 300 National Assembly members need to vote in favour.
If that happens, the president will be suspended. At that point, the Constitutional Court has up to six months to confirm the impeachment.
For that to happen, six of the court members have to vote to uphold the impeachment.
Upon confirmation of the impeachment, a new presidential election must be held within 60 days.
Arirang TV in South Korea is reporting that all 300 members of the National Assembly have cast their votes.
As a reminder, for the impeachment vote last Saturday, the ruling party lawmakers left the building before the vote took place.
My colleague Raphael Rashid has sent this photo of the scene just outside the chamber in the National Assembly building:
From inside South Korea’s parliament building I can see massive crowds through the glass doors of the main hall. The hopes of an entire nation are visible in front of me.
There is a huge media presence outside the main chamber as journalists wait for the votes to be counted.
Some journalists have reportedly been wearing black as a form of protest against the attack on press freedom that could have become a reality had Yoon’s declaration of martial law survived more than a few hours.
Voting has been completed and the counting is now beginning.
Raphael Rashid, the Guardian’s reporter in South Korea, is following the vote from inside the National Assembly building.
He says there was a “huge roar” calling for Yoon’s impeachment from the crowd outside as voting got under way.
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Who is Yoon Suk Yeol?
While we wait for the result, here is the Guardian’s profile of Yoon Suk Yeol.
For Yoon Suk Yeol, it appears, the tables have turned.
In 2017 the then prosecutor general led the legal action to remove then-president Park Geun-hye from office after she was convicted of abuse of power.
Now, in the most bizarre, chaotic, few hours in recent South Korean political history, Yoon himself is facing the music.
It took just hours for Yoon’s position as president to go from precarious to untenable. Two years after he was sworn in after a bitterly divisive election, it is hard to see how Yoon, an arch conservative, can survive Tuesday’s disastrous attempt to impose martial law.
Opposition parties are mustering their forces – which potentially include members of Yoon’s own People Power party – in anticipation of an impeachment vote in the same national assembly that voted to immediately lift martial law around six hours after it was imposed.
While Asia’s fourth-largest economy – and neighbour to a hostile nuclear-armed North Korea – reels from the political turmoil Yoon fomented – it appears that only his resignation will halt attempts to make him the second South Korean president to be forced from office since the country became a democracy less than four decades ago.
While Yoon beat his Democratic party challenger, Lee Jae-myung, in their March 2022 presidential election, the momentum is now with Lee, who led the challenge to martial law in the early hours of Wednesday.
Yoon had attempted to justify the imposition of martial law by referencing the presence in South Korea of “shameless pro-North Korean, anti-state forces” determined to destroy [South Korea’s] democracy, although he did not offer any evidence for his claim.
It is far more likely that other, less fanciful, factors were behind his decision.
Yoon, a controversial figure who is rumoured to have consulted shamanistic healers before deciding not to move into the president’s official Blue House residence, vowed to take a hardline stance against North Korea, ending attempts by his liberal predecessor, Moon Jae-in, to engage with the regime through summits with its leader, Kim Jong-un.
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Voting is now beginning. The process has been explained to lawmakers. We’ll bring you the result as soon as we get it.
Tens of thousands of people have braved the bitter cold and poured onto the streets of the capital, Seoul, every night for the past two weeks, calling for Yoon’s ouster and arrest. They shouted slogans, sang, danced and waved K-pop light sticks. Smaller groups of Yoon’s conservative supporters — still in the thousands — have also been rallying in Seoul, denouncing attempts to impeach the president. Both rallies have largely been peaceful.
“Many people are using idol light sticks even though they are expensive. I think it’s become a really great culture because people are bringing their most precious and brightest possessions to express their will and opinions,” said Hong Gayeong, a 29-year-old protester, near the National Assembly.
Here is the scene outside parliament in Seoul:
Park said South Korea’s democracy owed much to the pro-democracy protests in the southern city of Gwangju in 1980, when demonstrators were killed and injured in a bloody crackdown. “Martial law should only be proclaimed when the state is in an emergency or a state of war,” Park said of Yoon’s short-lived declaration on 3 December. “However, those conditions did not exist.”
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“Yoon Suk Yeol is the leader of this insurrection,” Park has declared.
“If it weren’t for citizens who rushed to the National Assembly, South Korea would not be different from 1980,” Park Chan-dae has said, referencing the 1980 Gwangju massacre that occurred under military rule and said that without the South Korean people’s intervention, the country would have been taken back to 1980 by Yoon’s declaration.
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Park Chan-dae, the floor leader of the Democratic party of Korea - the main opposition party – is reading out the reasoning for impeaching the president, including the content of his martial law declaration.
The National Assembly session debating the impeachment of the president, Yoon Suk Yeol, is now under way.
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President's party to vote against impeachment – reports
South Korea’s ruling party has decided to maintain its official position to vote against the impeachment of president Yoon Suk Yeol, local media has reported.
Last Saturday’s first impeachment vote ended in disarray after most members of Yoon’s conservative People Power party (PPP) boycotted the impeachment vote. But PPP lawmakers are expected to turn up to vote today.
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Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the continuing political crisis in South Korea, where the parliament is preparing to vote for the second time on a motion to impeach the president, Yoon Suk Yeol, after his failed attempt to impose martial law.
Thousands of people have already taken to the streets of Seoul today in rival rallies for and against Yoon, hours ahead of the impeachment vote.
Protests demanding Yoon step down kicked off around midday outside the National Assembly, which will vote at 4pm (0700 GMT) on an impeachment resolution – a week after a first attempt to remove Yoon for the martial law debacle failed.
Police expect at least 200,000 people to demonstrate in support of removing him.
On the other side of Seoul near Gwanghwamun square, thousands more rallied in support of Yoon, blasting patriotic songs and waving South Korean and American flags.
Two hundred votes are needed for the impeachment to pass, meaning opposition lawmakers must convince eight parliamentarians from Yoon’s conservative People Power party (PPP) to switch sides. Seven have pledged to do so.
Here’s what else happened this week:
Yoon defended his shock decision to impose martial law in a defiant and lengthy TV address on Thursday, vowing to “fight until the end” attempts to remove him from office. He repeated claims that he had been trying to defend the country from anti-state forces
On Wednesday, police raided Yoon’s office, in an attempt to establish whether Yoon’s actions amounted to insurrection. It emerged later that Yoon’s security guards had prevented officers from getting into the main building
Yoon’s former defence minister and one of his close associates, Kim Yong-hyun, tried to kill himself at a Seoul detention centre on Wednesday night, but was stopped by correctional officers. He had been arrested on allegations of playing a key role in a rebellion and committing abuse of power, becoming the first person formally arrested over the martial law decree
The country’s police chief and the head of Seoul’s metropolitan police were also detained for sending their forces to the national assembly. Lawmakers voted on Thursday to impeach the police chief and the justice minister.
Yoon was banned from leaving the country on Monday, and on Tuesday authorities banned more senior officials from leaving, including Cho Ji-ho, the commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency. Already under a travel ban were the former defence and interior ministers and the martial law commander, Gen Park An-su.
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