How South Koreans Rejected Martial Law

Update, Dec. 3, 2024: This article was published shortly before the lifting of martial law. It has been updated to reflect ongoing events.

Embattled South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law on Tuesday in an extraordinary attempt to consolidate his power. But after South Korea’s National Assembly unanimously voted to reject the move, Yoon’s self-coup has ended in a humiliating failure.

Yoon sought to use South Korea’s army to prevent the National Assembly from voting, but politicians from all parties defied the move, and protesters formed human barricades against soldiers. If troops had obeyed Yoon, the crisis could have spiraled, including confrontations between the army and the public. Instead, the army retreated from the National Assembly, and Yoon has announced that he will officially lift martial law in the morning. The crisis is now likely to end with Yoon’s impeachment.

Yoon has been in a budget confrontation, which escalated last week, with the legislature, where his People Power Party suffered sweeping losses in elections this year and the Democratic Party now holds a firm majority. Yoon cited the confrontation in his Tuesday announcement, saying that it was “clear anti-state behavior aimed at inciting rebellion” and accusing the Democratic Party of being “shameless pro-North anti-state forces.”

Yoon’s declaration of martial law was a wildly unexpected move.

Rumors have circulated for months that Yoon might make such an attempt, but mainstream political analysts painted them as fringe conspiracy theories. Martial law under South Korean democracy was envisaged as only a response to war or a major confrontation with North Korea. But while Pyongyang has been taking some worrying steps in recent months—including sending soldiers to aid Russia’s war in Ukraine—there is no military crisis.

Article 77 of the South Korean Constitution gives the president the ability to declare martial law and temporarily execute “special measures” on speech, assembly, and other freedoms during a national emergency. But the National Assembly also has the right to demand that the president cancel martial law with a simple up-and-down vote, as it did just hours after Yoon’s declaration.

Constitutionally, Yoon was bound to obey the legislature, but he took steps to try to prevent it from acting. South Korean army chief Park An-soo, a Yoon ally and the appointed martial law commander, issued a proclamation to block political activity, including that of the National Assembly, and take control of the media. South Korean media did not comply, while Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung asked both politicians and the public to gather at the National Assembly building in Seoul.

Using the army against the National Assembly is likely illegal even under the terms of martial law in South Korea, since Article 77 only allows the president to take measures affecting the executive and the judiciary, not the legislature. Yoon was attempting an autogolpe, or self-coup, in which a sitting leader seizes dictatorial power.

Declaring martial law was a desperate move by an unpopular politician who has grappled with crisis since South Korea’s parliamentary elections in April. Yoon, who took office in May 2022, faces a serious influence-peddling scandal, which has contributed to his poor approval ratings. Lately, he has regularly polled under 20 percent among the public.

Still, Yoon retained an audience in Washington due to his tough stance on North Korea. “He has almost always been highly unpopular,” said Karl Friedhoff, an Asia policy fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “But for those in D.C., he was saying and doing all the right things. He returned to Cold War rhetoric—calling the progressives North Korea sympathizers, for example. That is something that aligns with the view of many in D.C. about [former South Korean President] Moon Jae-in.”

Many in Yoon’s party announced their opposition to martial law in South Korea, including leader Han Dong-hoon, and the eventual vote to cancel the declaration was an unanimous one among all 190 members who made it to the legislature to vote. Though Han was a protégé of Yoon’s, he has emerged as a political rival in the last year.

People Power Party members such as Han are likely to join the opposition in impeaching the president, which requires 200 of its 300 members to vote to impeach. “I expect the move will net out to giving the opposition—which is well-positioned to win the Blue House in 2027—still more momentum,” said Robert Manning, a fellow at the Stimson Center

The South Korean public assembled in large numbers to protest Yoon’s move and will likely stay in the streets until he goes. The idea of martial law is extremely unpopular in South Korea, where many older people recall its use in 1980 under the military dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan, a general who seized power after the assassination of former dictator Park Chung-hee. In May 1980, the South Korean military killed scores of protesters in Gwangju, an event now commemorated in South Korea.

South Korea also has an efficient and sophisticated protest infrastructure—built on the experience of life under the dictatorship, decades of protest against the U.S. military presence in the country, and the mass movement that brought down conservative President Park Geun-hye in 2017, in which more than 16 million people took to the streets.

Conscript forces, who may be more unwilling than other soldiers to use force against protesters, make up a slim majority in South Korea’s army. Park tried to use the then-Defense Security Command, a counterintelligence force, to suppress her political enemies and came close to attempting martial law herself amid protests in 2016.

It is unlikely that U.S. politics played a major role in Yoon’s decision to declare martial law. Though the South Korean government has attempted to build ties with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, President Joe Biden still has more than month left in office; events in Seoul are likely to play out quickly. The Biden administration put out a mealymouthed statement, falling either to back Yoon or wholeheartedly condemn him.

One consequence of the failed coup will be undermining U.S. efforts at Japan-South Korea reconciliation, in which Yoon played a major role—which also cost him politically at home. “In D.C., there just wasn’t enough thought of how failure of domestic policy will have knock-on effects for foreign policy,” Friedhoff said.