The New Yorker:

The newly elected President defeated an increasingly authoritarian rival party. Can he bring the country back together?

By E. Tammy Kim

Just before 11 p.m. this past December 3rd, the Korean legislator Lee Jae-myung issued a dire warning from a moving car. “My fellow-Koreans, you must come out to the National Assembly,” he said, in a live stream from his phone. The video showed Lee in a dark suit and a royal-blue tie, the color of his Democratic Party. He looked weary and frightened. “Our democracy is collapsing,” he said. “Please come together to protect it.”

The nation’s President, Yoon Suk-yeol, who was a prosecutor before being groomed for leadership by the People Power Party, had spent the past few years turning the machinery of the state against political opponents, trade unions, and journalists who criticized him. Now he had declared martial law and sent troops to lock down the parliamentary complex. But Lee and his allies hoped that they could prevail: because of South Korea’s recent history of military dictatorships, its constitution allows the legislature to constrain orders of martial law. The night that Lee issued his call, thousands of citizens showed up at the National Assembly. They helped Democratic Party legislators, and even a few conservatives typically aligned with Yoon, make their way past the soldiers and break into the building to vote down the order. It was an uncommon instance of coöperation across party lines in extreme circumstances—and, I argued at the time, a model for fighting authoritarianism elsewhere.

A great deal has happened since. From December through April, there were ecstatic daily protests, demanding that Yoon be ousted. These were followed by Yoon’s impeachment by the National Assembly, his criminal indictment, his formal removal by the Constitutional Court—and, this Tuesday, a snap election to replace him. In the 2022 Presidential election, Lee lost to Yoon by less than one per cent. This time, he won by more than eight points. He will be inaugurated on Wednesday, beginning a five-year term.

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