South Korea: Motive emerges for President Yoon’s failed self-coup
[Editor’s note: This article as written just prior to the mass mobilisation held in Seoul on December 6 and failed impeachment vote against President Yoon Suk Yeol later that day. A follow up article covering these events can be read here while an initial article on Yoon’s self-coup can be read here.]
More details continue to emerge regarding the motivation behind President Yoon Suk Yeol’s spectacular failed self-coup on December 3.
A potential motive was revealed on December 6 when footage was released of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) deputy director leading troops into the National Election Committee (NEC) headquarters amid Yoon’s declaration of martial law.
According to Yoon’s defense minister, Kim Yong Hyun, the purpose of the attack was to secure evidence of supposed electoral fraud that had occurred in the April general election. Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP) suffered a huge defeat in those elections, with its parliamentary bloc reduced to a minority.
Extreme right-wing YouTubers had circulated fake news of the NEC committing electoral fraud. Though clearly false, it appears Yoon — trapped in his extreme right mindset — and his co-conspirators believed the fake news was real and used it as a pretext for their attempted self-coup.
While providing some motivation for the plot, it does not make it any less insane.
PPP: Oust Yoon or commit political suicide?
In a speech to the nation on the morning of December 7, Yoon said he wanted to “sincerely apologise to the people who were shocked” by his actions, adding he would “leave it up to [the PPP] to stabilise the political situation in the future, including my term of office.” Yoon also ruled out any further attempt to impose martial law.
Having expressed opposition to impeachment yesterday, some PPP leaders, in particular party leader Han Dong-hoon, shifted positions today — most likely after finding out they were among those on a list of people to be arrested had the self-coup succeeded.
Others on the arrest list included Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) leader, judges from the Supreme Court of Justice, an anti-government broadcaster, and a civil society organisation leader. Also on the list were several politicians, including all parliamentary leaders except the House Speaker, who heads the pro-Yoon faction within the PPP.
Han briefly met with Yoon on the afternoon of December 6 to encourage him to resign, with two other PPP leaders also visiting him to relay the party’s general mood in support of his resignation. But no agreement was reached.
Han is now seeking to persuade PPP MPs to support impeachment. So far two PPP MPs have expressed their support for such a course, but at least eight PPP MPs are needed to secure the required two-thirds vote for impeachment.
Meanwhile, opposition MPs — who rejected Yoon’s apology — and parliamentary staffers remain inside parliament, with no plans to leave in case Yoon tries anything again. Parliament will reconvene on December 7 at 5pm to see if enough votes can be mustered for impeachment.
For now, nothing is certain about Yoon’s fate. But with the United States government and international media outlets joining in the choir of criticism against Yoon’s crazy behaviour, it seems his days are numbered. What remains to be seen is how far the PPP is willing to go in terms of committing political suicide by continuing to stand by Yoon.
People have their say
About 50,000 protesters gathered to pressure the PPP into voting for impeachment on December 6.
Protest organisers expect the December 7 rallies — set to kick off at 1pm — will see about 200,000 take to the streets.
KCTU leaders have declared an indefinite general strike. While the KCTU says it will organise some 200,000 workers to go on strike nationally, so far the reach of its call has been limited. A protest organised by the KCTU yesterday in front of the PPP headquarters mobilised about 500 people.
Several unions, such as the railway union, have taken the opportunity to go on strike for their own demands. The Korean Metal Workers’ Union (KMWU) held a national 2-hour strike over December 5 and 6, claiming that at least 70,000 workers went on strike the first day.
Won Youngsu is an activist, Marxist and labour studies researcher. He is the Director of Pnyx – Institute of Marxist Studies in Korea.
South Korea: In face of million-strong protest, ruling party sabotages Yoon’s impeachment
[Editor’s note: Readers can find more background information in the two previous reports by Won: “South Korea: After President Yoon’s failed self-coup” and “South Korea: Motive emerges for President Yoon’s failed self-coup”.]
Despite his failed December 3 self-coup, President Yoon Suk-yeol remains in his post after MPs from the conservative ruling People Power Party (PPP) boycotted a impeachment vote on December 7. This was despite 1 million people gathering outside for a candlelight protest demanding his ouster.
A successful vote for impeachment required at least eight of the 108 PPP MPs voting in favour. Ultimately, only three stayed in parliament for the vote. But by boycotting the vote, the PPP has committed political suicide.
PPP turmoil
PPP leader Han Dong-hoon was initially reluctant to proceed with impeachment, even though he voted in parliament to annul Yoon’s declaration of martial law in the early hours of December 4. By the morning of December 7, however, Han had shifted position after finding out his name was on a list of people to be arrested had the self-coup succeeded.
But Han faced resistance from PPP parliamentary leader and Yoon faction leader, Joo Ho-young. This triggered a fierce dispute within the party. Yoon met with Han, claiming he never planned to arrest him.
No compromise was achieved, but in the end, Han and his anti-Yoon faction failed to persuade other PPP MPs to support impeachment. Instead, under the pretext of maintaining political stability, Han opted for sabotaging impeachment.
PPP MPs did attend the parliamentary session to vote against the special prosecution opening an investigation into Yoon’s wife, Kim Keon-hee. Though six PPP MPs voted in favor, this was not enough to obtain the required 200 votes (the final vote was 198-102).
PPP MPs, including Han, then boycotted the impeachment vote by walking out. Former presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo and two other PPP MPs broke ranks and stayed, but again this was not enough to reach the needed two-thirds majority.
Gigantic protest
Outside, hundreds of thousands started to gather at 3pm — two hours before the impeachment session began — filling the avenue in front of parliament and surrounding streets.
The area was so overcrowded that subway trains were forced to bypass the station at parliament. But the cold weather did not stop people walking from all directions to parliament after getting off one or two stations later.
Wave after wave of people turned up, with separate rallies marching to the main protest organised by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) and the Candlelight Coalition.
With 1 million people surrounding parliament to demand Yoon’s immediate impeachment, it became impossible to move in any direction. So many people were using their phones in one place that the signal collapsed.
The presence of youth was especially noticeable. As night fell, glow sticks and mobile phones could be seen side-by-side with the more traditional candles, creating a spectacular scene reminiscent of a huge K-Pop concert.
Protesters’ hopes for impeachment were not met however — at least for now.
After the sabotaged impeachment
Han and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo held a joint press conference the next day to explain that while Yoon would not be impeached, the two would take charge of running the government. No timetable for this supposed transition was proposed.
The announcement was harshly criticised by opposition parties, who described it as another coup and denounced the two as co-coup conspirators.
Commentators noted it was not possible for someone who was not elected to run the government (both the party leader and PM were handpicked by the president). All agreed that impeachment was the only legitimate means to restore the constitutional order.
Meanwhile, former defense minister Kim Yong Hyun has been arrested, with police searching his office and residence to seize evidence relating to the self-coup. The investigation will almost certainly target Yoon next.
People remain dubious of any investigation by the police or prosecutor's office, as police were mobilised in Yoon’s short-lived martial law and the prosecutor's office is a key base of Yoon’s support. But the illegitimacy and illegality of the self-coup is so self-evident that any investigation will likely proceed at a swift pace.
What lies ahead?
With the failed first attempt at impeachment, the struggle for democracy has entered a different stage.
Politically speaking, Yoon is paralysed but still technically in power. The ruling party is trying to control the situation, but has become increasingly isolated due to internal and external pressure. Even the United States government has come out against Yoon’s self-coup.
Opposition parties are still pursuing an impeachment vote. The enormous pressure building up as a result of people’s anger and rage may force Yoon to resign before then. Whether via impeachment or resignation, Yoon’s fate as president seems sealed, with a high likelihood he is soon in prison.
Han Dong-hoon’s proposed peaceful and orderly retreat will not save Yoon or the PPP. People will prevail and democracy will win out again, as it has on several occasions in South Korea’s modern history.
A new stage in this fight has begun. The struggle continues.
In Depth
What’s behind the crisis in South Korea?
The recent backfired coup attempt has shown the deep cracks in South Korea’s ruling class. But, says Thomas Foster, to understand the crisis, we must grasp the way imperialist conflict has shaped the country and its politics
SOCIALIST WORKER
Around one million people marched in the capital of South Korea, Seoul, last Saturday to demand the resignation of the president
The West holds up South Korea as a beacon of democracy and capitalist progress. But last week’s half-baked coup reveals a society in deep crisis.
Yoon Suk Yeol, the right wing president, launched the coup in a desperate attempt to break the political dead-lock in the country.
This crisis flows from South Korea’s position as a client state of United States imperialism. Its history is marked by dictatorship, martial law and coups—indeed, it has only been a “liberal democracy” since 1988.
But it’s also seen powerful working class movements that show an alternative to a corrupt ruling class and its US backers.
South Korea owes its entire existence to US imperialism at the end of the Second World War.
In 1945 the US proposed that occupying Japanese troops south of the 38th parallel—an arbitrary line on the map—should surrender to the US. Troops north of the line surrendered to Stalinist Russia.
The two superpowers cut Korea in half and ordinary people there had no say in it. The US and Russia set up client regimes in their halves of the peninsula, both ruled by brutal dictatorships.
When North Korea waged war against South Korea in 1950, US troops rescued the South from the abyss. After three years of war that devastated Korea, the two sides had fought each other to a standstill.
The border was virtually the same as at the beginning. The US backed South Korea as a bulwark against Russia, China and North Korea in Asia. It propped up the dictatorship of Syngman Rhee—and, when student protests brought down the regime in 1960, helped him flee the country.
South Korea’s rulers—and their US backers—bided their time and prepared to launch a coup. General Park Chung Hee seized power in 1961. Through a combination of US aid, close ties between the state and domestic capitalist class and repression of the labour movement, he built up a powerful economy.
Park’s economic model meant there was a close relationship between the state, banks and industry. As well as encouraging corruption, it stoked competition within the regime.
In 1979, amid slowing economic growth and demands for change, Park was assassinated by a close ally who headed the security services.
General Chun Doo-hwan seized power, declared martial law and went on to oversee a series of massacres against student demonstrators.
His regime collapsed in 1987 amid mass protests—including powerful strikes by workers. But the state didn’t fundamentally change and it remained a client of US imperialism. And since then, South Korea’s democratic politics has seemingly been embroiled in a “revenge cycle” between rival wings of the ruling class.
All former presidents—except one—have either been indicted for corruption, bribery and embezzlement or have had family members arrested for financial scandals related to the presidency. No sooner does a new president take over, they begin prosecuting their predecessor.
The conservative leader Lee Myung-bak, elected in 2008, encouraged a bribery investigation into his immediate predecessor, Roh Moo-hyun, who died by suicide in 2009 while being investigated. Then Lee was arrested in 2018 on charges of bribery, embezzlement and tax evasion. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
His immediate successor was Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s first female leader and daughter of General Park. She was impeached in 2017, before the completion of her five-year term, and convicted on charges of corruption and influence-peddling.
Prosecutors are currently investigating Moon Jae-in, president from 2017 to 2022, for bribery.
And they are also investigating Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the main opposition party, the liberal Democratic Party, for corruption. And now Yoon is facing the prospect of impeachment and possible jail time.
This is reflective of the role the prosecution office plays in South Korean politics. After the end of military rule, the prosecution service took over some of the pervasive authority of the state intelligence apparatus.
Million people protest to demand South Korean president’s resignation
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It has steadily become more bloated, emerging as an allpowerful fixer for the president, with each president weaponising powers to eliminate or humiliate their rivals.
Under the last government of Moon Jae-in, Yoon was the director of the prosecution service. Under Yoon’s watch, the service expanded its reach to prosecute more than 200 bureaucrats and politicians.
It led to Yoon himself being investigated at one point for arranging criminal complaints against
specific politicians running in the 2020 parliamentary elections.
He won the presidency just three months after launching his bid. It is a feat made possible by the vast political connections and overarching influence of the prosecution office.
These practices, along with the spectacle of the opposition leader Lee’s corruption, have cumulatively led to the point that a bloated prosecution finally catapulted its own chief to presidency after thwarting intermittent attempts to curtail its power.
Kap Seol, a left wing author, said, “Yoon’s seizure of the presidency represented the culmination of a rolling coup, thirty-three years in the making, from one of South Korea’s last bastions of authoritarianism.”
The rise of China has worsened the economic problems and political polarisation that helped lead to Yoon’s decision.
South Korea—between the US and China
Over the last four decades, while staying deeply loyal to US imperialism, South Korea’s economy has rapidly developed and become more integrated with the Chinese economy.
“Many South Korean manufacturers export machinery and semiconductors to China. During the 2000s, the government was saying that it was partners with the US for security and partners with China for the economy,” Munseong, a socialist activist in South Korea, told Socialist Worker.
“Since the rivalry between the US and China has become more intense, the US has demanded that South Korea decouple from China. It’s created a lot of economic pain as South Korea relies on that export market.”
Chinese companies now mount a formidable challenge in areas such as semiconductors, consumer electronics and cars, areas that have been disproportionately responsible for South Korea’s industrial miracle.
“In the economic war between China and the US, especially in the technology race, South Korea has to depend on the US,” Munseong said.
“Because of these factors, Yoon has been pro-US and put forward a US, Japanese, South Korean military alliance. But now, as a response, North Korea has made a partnership with Russia and this has triggered a security crisis in South Korea.
“The security crisis and a worsening state of the economy has contributed to low popularity.
“The two main countries that South Korea exports to are in conflict, posing very severe contradictions.”
South Korea has been a huge beneficiary of the old, globalisation-friendly world order. But with China’s rise and ever hardening US response, it is being forced to pick sides.
The divisions were seen in Yoon’s invoking of the spectre of North Korean influence, as he portrayed opposition figures as “pro-North, anti-state forces”. He was trying to mobilise Cold War language and take advantage of South Korea’s long-standing trauma about the Korean war.
This is the crucial political context in which polarisation and instability is occurring, and which Yoon’s half-baked coup is a product of.
Strikes reveal a militant force—and an alternative to imperialism
There is a force that can pose an alternative to the imperialist powers and South Korea’s rulers.
The years before the Korean war saw workers strike, occupy their factories and set up grassroots democratic bodies. These were repressed by the US and Russia. But industrialisation created a powerful working class that played a decisive role at the end of military rule in the 1980s.
Repeatedly, over the last two decades, South Korean workers have faced repression only to organise and resist with massive militant mobilisations.
For example, it was almost constant mass mobilisation of millions of people on the streets that brought corrupt president Park down in 2017. And that movement began following strikes from rail workers.
Munseong spoke about the current route forward for the working class movement. He said, “Since October the anti-president movement has grown significantly. The main opposition party is the Democratic Party who have hegemony within the current movement and a majority in parliament.
“The party in the past has fought against dictatorships but has also had many neoliberal policies. Because of that, many workers and the poor and those who are militant distrust it.
“The mainstream of the anti-president movement is too moderate and opportunistic. We have to argue for the immediate resignation of the president and that should be realised through struggle. All people and workers should come together and the KCTU trade union federation should start a general strike.
“Not all strikes have to call for the big thing of presidential resignation, but even strikes with local demands can contribute significantly to the current movement. Because currently the situation is very critical. Now is not the time to be overly optimistic.”
He added, “On the one side, the conservative People’s Party will be very strong and won’t step back. On the other side, the resistance side, many people know that the movement should not stop here and the president is far from removed.”
“But the leaders of the movement are not as firm as the president’s side. The Democratic Party is a capitalist party and can’t call for strikes or for struggle from below. The KCTU leadership has called for a general strike but whether that will materialise is yet to be seen as individual trade union leaders are wavering.
“We are organising militant workers and because it is an issue of parliamentary democracy, the first response is the streets and the universities.”
As South Korea has recently seen large street movements for Palestine, anti-government protests and feminist demonstrations, Munseong argued, “We are trying to make the confidence of struggle on the streets and universities grow into the workplaces.”
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