As impeached South Korean President Yoon awaits fate, his party sees signs of revival Reuters

By Hyunsu Yim

SEOUL (Reuters) – A prolonged period of uncertainty surrounding the fate of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and a failed attempt to arrest him is giving oxygen to his supporters and reviving support for his ailing party.

Yoon, suspended from office after a short-lived state of emergency was imposed on Dec. 3 and under criminal investigation for possible sedition, has been holed up in his hilltop residence in Seoul for weeks, guarded by a small army of personal security.

A National Barometer Survey released on Thursday found 59% of respondents wanted him arrested, something investigators are determined to do even though they failed last week after a widely televised six-hour standoff with his security. But 37% said Yoon’s arrest was excessive.

A similar split fell in favor of the Constitutional Court, which is currently debating the decision of lawmakers to impeach Yoon, to remove him permanently.

Analysts say the prospects for Yoon’s return to office are unclear, but the break has emboldened his loyal supporters, many of whom braved sub-zero temperatures to gather near his residence on Thursday morning.

The weeks since Yoon’s impeachment have also seen a rebound in support for his ruling People’s Party (PPP), which some analysts say shows signs of conservatives uniting to fight a possible presidential election later this year.

“The attempt to arrest Yoon seems to have reinvigorated the conservatives,” said Mason Richey, a professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul.

He said the revival is coming from both die-hard Yoon supporters, who support his reasons for declaring martial law including baseless allegations of election fraud, and those less supportive of Yoon but worried about the prospect of Lee Jae-myung, the liberal leader of the main opposition party. becoming president.

“If the impeachment attempt had succeeded, those conservatives would have been defeated a second time, after the impeachment, and that resurgence would likely have been quickly quelled. The more impeachment attempts fail, the stronger the reinvigorated conservatives will feel,” Richey said.

A Realmeter poll released on Monday showed the PPP’s approval rating at 34.4%, up for three consecutive weeks. Support for the main opposition Democratic Party, which has a parliamentary majority and led the vote to impeach Yoon, was higher at 45.2%.

South Korea is one of the most politically divided countries in the world after the US, with 9 in 10 adults saying there is strong conflict between people who support different political parties, according to a 2022 Pew Research survey.

YOON FANS

Most pollsters in South Korea have stopped tracking Yoon’s approval ratings since the parliament impeached him, although some fringe polls have shown a rise in his personal support in recent days.

As he faces the possibility of another arrest attempt, his lawyers have remained defiant, arguing that anti-corruption officials seeking his arrest lack the authority to investigate him for sedition, despite a court order.

Lawyers, however, told reporters on Thursday that the Constitutional Court’s decision on Yoon’s political future would be accepted.

“The president is still strong. He said he doesn’t want people to suffer and public officials to suffer because of this, but he can’t accept illegal investigations.” lawyer Seok Dong-hyeon, Yoon’s confidant, told a crowd of Yoon’s supporters gathered outside his residence on Wednesday.

“Thank you, young people, for coming to join and save our country.”

Jeremy Chan, a senior analyst covering Northeast Asia at the Eurasia Group, a US political risk consultancy, said further attempts to arrest Yoon would likely only “invigorate” his and his party’s support.

Yoon’s supporters also draw inspiration from US President-elect Donald Trump, who has previously made unsubstantiated claims of election fraud and faced a series of legal problems but made a stunning comeback in last year’s election.

Some of Yoon’s supporters have adopted the “Stop the Steal” slogan popularized by Trump advocates to bolster allegations of election fraud against the state’s supervisor of elections. Trump has not directly commented on Yoona’s situation.

But Lee Jun-han, a political science professor at Incheon National University, said what is more likely to drive conservative voters to rally behind the party is the memory of a heavy election defeat after the 2017 impeachment of former conservative President Park Geun-hye.

“(Conservatives) have seen total destruction after the impeachment of Park Geun-hye,” Lee said.