The New Yorker:

By E. Tammy Kim

While working on Deep State Diaries, my weekly dispatch about the Trump Administration’s attacks on the federal workforce, I’ve kept my eye on another democracy in crisis: South Korea.

In December, President Yoon Suk-yeol had attempted to thwart the country’s National Assembly, which was obstructing his agenda, by declaring martial law. He censored the media and banned large gatherings; he ordered troops and police to arrest opposition leaders and a leftist journalist. Shoot, if necessary, he demanded. As I wrote at the time, there could have been a massacre—a return to South Korea’s violent, pre-democratic past. (The country was ruled by military dictators from 1961 to 1987.) But the soldiers disobeyed, legislators pushed past guns to vote down the declaration, and thousands of protesters filled the streets. Within six hours, Yoon was forced to call off his plan.

Mass protests continued throughout the winter, calling for Yoon’s arrest and prosecution. He was eventually impeached and indicted for crimes against the state. It was a meaningful step for a relatively new democracy, I wrote. But impeachment does not automatically lead to removal from office. That would be up to the nation’s Constitutional Court, which deliberated for two and a half months. On Friday morning, the justices ruled unanimously (8–0) in favor of Yoon’s ouster. An election for a new President must now be held within sixty days.

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