The Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) finally succeeded in detaining South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who repeatedly refused to appear for questioning by the investigation team, on January 15, less than two weeks after it failed to execute an arrest warrant against him on January 3. Yoon has become the first sitting president of South Korea to be detained.
Before getting arrested by the CIO’s prosecutors and police personnel, Yoon belittled the agency, reiterating his stance that the CIO has no constitutional right to investigate allegations of insurrection against him in a video released by his lawyers. He also delivered a one-sided argument that the court illegally issued the arrest warrant against him, saying “the rule of law has completely collapsed in this country.”
However, every government agency concerned with the criminal justice system has not agreed with Yoon’s argument. The institutions of justice have clearly confirmed the legitimacy of the CIO’s investigation into Yoon and the arrest warrant issued by the court. Some law experts also argued that the CIO’s successful arrest operation against the president demonstrated that the country’s legal system is still functioning and added that no one should be beyond the law.
On January 14, a day before Yoon was detained, the Constitutional Court held the first hearing in his impeachment trial. Yoon did not even show up, leading the court to adjourn the trial only four minutes after it began. The Constitutional Court also dismissed a request from Yoon’s defense team for the recusal of Judge Chung Kye-sun, one of the two judges Acting President Choi Sang-mok appointed on December 31. Chung’s appointment was recommended by the opposition Democratic Party.
Yoon will permanently be removed from office if at least six justices uphold his impeachment. In that case, the country should hold a presidential election within 60 days.
In the wake of Yoon’s illegitimate declaration of martial law on December 3, the opposition parties swiftly kicked off the process to impeach the president, as he apparently violated the constitution. It only took 11 days for the National Assembly to suspend him from duties, demonstrating the country’s “Hurry Hurry” culture.
As Yoon created an unexpected bout of political chaos that could have also weakened the alliance with the United States, putting South Korea’s national security in jeopardy, it was expected that he and the ruling People Power Party would significantly lose support from the public. However, the recent polls reported by local media show interesting results.
According to a poll released on January 16 and reported by Yonhap News Agency, 35 percent of respondents supported the ruling PPP while just 33 percent supported the main opposition Democratic Party. It is the first poll showing the PPP’s approval ratings surpassed the DP’s in the past four months. In this poll, 48 percent of respondents supported regime change while 41 percent supported the PPP to regain power.
Public opinion polls, including the latest one, show the impeachment of Yoon has not dramatically helped the DP to muster support. The reflects a change from eight years ago, when the DP saw its support rise after conservatives failed to block then-President Park Geun-hye from being impeached by the National Assembly and the Constitutional Court.
Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the DP, was also the contender against Yoon in the 2022 presidential election when he was defeated only by 0.7 percentage points – the narrowest margin of victory in South Korea’s history. Lee is still the most hopeful to take over the presidency should Yoon be permanently removed from office with the ruling of the Constitutional Court in the coming weeks or days. However, the polls clearly show his victory is not guaranteed, despite the massive political turmoil created by Yoon.
“I do believe Yoon should be impeached immediately. But I will not vote for Lee Jae-myung if he runs again in the presidential election,” Lee Chan-sup, 59, told The Diplomat. “I think many people who voted for Yoon in 2022 will vote for a presidential candidate of the PPP, not Lee, as we believe Lee is not the right one who can rule this country well.”
The DP has been filled in with lawmakers who align themselves with Lee Jae-myung in the wake of its landslide victory in the general elections in 2024. The main mission of the DP is to win the next presidential election under Lee’s leadership, meaning there is no contender against Lee within the DP who can run for the presidential election at present. In this context, the public’s sentiment, expressed through the polls, is a de facto reflection that they may not vote for Lee in the presidential election, regardless of Yoon’s impeachment.
Also, as Lee is also facing legal challenges stemming from the multiple charges, he may not be able to run in the election. Should the Supreme Court uphold an earlier ruling that sentenced him to one year in prison with a two-year probation for violating the Public Official Election Act, Lee would not be able to run for any political office. In this context, the PPP has been urging the court to proceed with Lee’s remaining trials as quickly as possible, but the ruling of the Constitutional Court on the impeachment of Yoon will likely come out first as the Court of Appeals has still not issued its ruling on Lee’s case yet.
“What Yoon did on December 3 was illegal so he should be removed from office. But it does not mean that Lee should be the next president,” Kang Hee-chan, 23, a college student, told The Diplomat.
However, DP supporters provide different views on the recent polls. According to an interview with Lee Hee-kyung, 31, a company worker in Seoul who backs the DP, there is reason to question the reliability of the polls.
“Last year, I saw many polls saying more people support the PPP than DP, and they were released only months before the general election. But we know what happened,” she said, referring to the DP’s landslide victory. “According to the polls, Lee Jae-myung should have lost the presidential election by more than 10 points in 2022 but he was defeated by only 0.7 points.”
“I believe most of the DP supporters do not answer the calls by the pollsters for their surveys but just voted for our candidates on the election day so we do not trust the polls that much,” Lee, the DP supporter, said.
Some on South Korea’s right wing have a different explanation for the discrepancy between the polls and election results. Far-right conservatives have promoted the narrative that the 2024 general election was stolen. With Yoon now backing that unsubstantiated claim, the country’s solid democratic and election system have been increasingly questioned by conservatives. Even though the National Election Commission has clearly confirmed that a rigged election cannot happen under the current system, Yoon supporters have appealed to the Constitutional Court to reinstate the president. Yoon’s backers believe he tried to save the country from pro-Chinese and pro-North Korean forces intent on subverting South Korea’s democracy, despite a lack of evidence for such claims.
Earlier, Hwang Kyo-ahn, who was prime minister under Park in 2016, raised claims of a rigged election when the Future United Party, which is now the PPP, was critically defeated by the DP in the 2020 general election. Back then, the majority of his party lawmakers did not support his claim even though he led the campaigns as the leader of the party. The election system has not dramatically changed since then, but the conservatives and far-right extremists still insist that the DP’s victory in the 2024 elections is unexplainable unless the election was rigged.
Yoon’s lawyers had filed a request to the court to neutralize the arrest warrant, but the court dismissed the request late on January 16. The judge said there was no legal issue with the warrant. In broader terms, the court decision de facto recognized the constitutional right of the CIO to investigate Yoon on charges of insurrection, which means the legal arguments by Yoon’s defense team have not been accepted.
Yoon will remain in custody and face questioning through at least January 17, with prosecutors having the option to seek a longer arrest warrant.