South Korea’s opposition leader, Lee Jae-myung, has offered to work with the government to ease political tumult as officials sought to reassure allies and markets – a day after the opposition-controlled parliament voted to impeach the conservative president, Yoon Suk Yeol, over a short-lived attempt to impose martial law.
South Korea’s central bank vowed on Sunday vowed to keep markets stable, while the South Korean financial regulator said it would expand market-stabilising funds if necessary.
Joe Biden on Sunday called the US alliance with South Korea a “linchpin for peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region” after a call on Saturday with Han Duck-soo, the prime minister who has become the acting president while a constitutional court deliberates over whether to permanently remove Yoon from office.
South Korean lawmakers voted on Saturday to impeach Yoon over his brief declaration of martial law, which plunged the country into some of its worst political turmoil in decades.
Lee Jae-myung, the Liberal Democratic party leader whose party holds a majority in the National Assembly, urged the constitutional court to rule swiftly on Yoon’s impeachment and proposed a special council for cooperation between the government and parliament.
Yoon’s powers have been suspended until the court decides whether to remove him from office or reinstate him. If Yoon is dismissed, a national election to choose his successor must be held within 60 days.
Lee, who has led a fierce political offensive against Yoon’s embattled government, is seen as the frontrunner to replace him.
He told a televised news conference that a swift court ruling would be the only way to “minimise national confusion and the suffering of people”.
The court will meet to begin considering the case on Monday, and has up to 180 days to rule. But observers say that a ruling could come faster. In the case of parliamentary impeachments of past presidents, Roh Moo-hyun in 2004 and Park Geun-hye in 2016, the court spent 63 days and 91 days respectively before determining to reinstate Roh and dismiss Park.
Lee also proposed a national council where the government and the National Assembly would work together to stabilise state affairs, and said his party would not seek to impeach the prime minister, a Yoon appointee who is now serving as acting president.
“The Democratic party will actively cooperate with all parties to stabilise state affairs and restore international trust,” Lee said. “The National Assembly and government will work together to quickly resolve the crisis that has swept across the Republic of Korea.”
It was not immediately clear how the governing People Power party would react to Lee’s proposal. Kim Woong, a former PPP lawmaker, accused Lee of attempting to exert power over state affairs.
The Democratic party has used its parliamentary majority to impeach the justice minister and the chief of the national police over the martial law decree, and previously said it was also considering impeaching Han Duck-soo.
There was no immediate response from Han, a seasoned bureaucrat.
Upon assuming his role as acting leader, Han ordered the military to bolster its security posture against North Korea. He asked the foreign minister to inform other countries that South Korea’s major external policies would remain unchanged, and the finance minister to work to minimise potential negative impacts on the economy from the political turmoil.
On Sunday, Han had a phone call with the US president, Joe Biden, discussing the political situation in South Korea and regional security challenges including North Korea’s nuclear programme. Biden expressed his appreciation for the resiliency of democracy in South Korea and reaffirmed “the ironclad commitment” of the US, according to both governments.
Yoon’s 3 December imposition of martial law, the first of its kind in more than four decades, lasted only six hours. Yoon sent hundreds of troops and police officers to the parliament in an effort to stop the vote, but they withdrew after the parliament overturned Yoon’s decree. No major violence occurred.
Opposition parties have accused Yoon of rebellion, saying a president in South Korea is allowed to declare martial law only during wartime or similar emergencies and would have no right to suspend parliament’s operations even in those cases.
Yoon has rejected the charges and vowed to “fight to the end”. He said the deployment of troops to parliament was aimed to issue a warning to the Democratic party, which he called an “anti-state force” that abused its control of parliament by holding up the government’s budget bill for next year and repeatedly pushing to impeach top officials.
Law enforcement institutions are investigating possible rebellion and other allegations. They have arrested Yoon’s defence minister and police chief and two other high-level figures.
Yoon has immunity from most criminal prosecution as president, but that does not extend to allegations of rebellion or treason. He has been banned from leaving South Korea, but observers doubt that authorities will detain him because of the potential for clashes with his presidential security service.
Lee called for authorities to speed up their probes and said that an independent investigation by a special prosecutor should be launched as soon as possible. Last week, the National Assembly passed a law calling for an investigation led by a special prosecutor.
“Individuals and institutions involved in this act of rebellion should fully cooperate with the investigations,” Lee said.
With Agence France-Presse, Reuters and the Associated Press
