After lawmakers rejected his brief attempt to implement martial law and thousands of demonstrators took to the streets, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was called upon to step down on Wednesday.
Yoon’s unexpected attempt to declare martial law for the first time in more than 40 years threw the nation into the most severe unrest in its contemporary democratic history and surprised its close supporters abroad.
When martial law was declared, the US, which has about 30,000 soldiers in South Korea to defend it from the nuclear-armed North, expressed both grave anxiety and joy that it was ended.
Yoon, a conservative politician and former top public prosecutor who was elected president in 2022, now faces a precarious future due to the spectacular events.
South Korea’s main opposition party whose lawmakers jumped fences and tussled with security forces so they could vote to overturn the law demanded Yoon’s immediate resignation.
“We will file charges of insurrection,” against Yoon, his defence and interior ministers and “key military and police figures involved, such as the martial law commander and the police chief”, the Democratic Party said in a statement.
It would also advocate for impeachment, it added.
An “indefinite general strike” was declared by the country’s biggest umbrella workers union until Yoon quit.
Additionally, the head of Yoon’s own ruling party called the attempt “tragic” and demanded that those responsible be held accountable.
