North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Examining the fallout from Yoon Suk-yeol’s shocking declaration of martial law

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol made the unprecedented decision to impose martial law on Tuesday, plunging the country into political chaos and leading the parliament to take action to force him to rescind the order just hours later. In a special joint episode, members of the NK News and Korea Pro teams dissect the dramatic […]

Hello everyone. This is a special emergency podcast that we had no plans to do, but this is December 4th, Wednesday, a little bit after noon. We are doing this episode with editor of Korea Pro Pro John Lee, junior correspondent Korea Pro and NK News Junha Park and me also NK News and Korea Pro Chung Min Kim and this will be a double episode for both Korea Pro listeners and NK News listeners because there is an overlapping aspect in both platforms with what happened last night, martial law in South Korea. This was, I have not expected anything like this will happen in South Korea. It was the mother of all black swan events.

I didn't see this coming. Uh, let's start with a quick run through of what exactly happened last night. It was very hectic. Um, everybody on NK News and Korea Pro immediately came online to do a quick take and monitor and everything. And this went on until like at least 3 a.m. in the morning. Junha, can you walk us through please? Yeah.

So at 10, 25 p.m., approximately then, President Yun, he declared martial law. He addressed the nation through a live stream broadcast straight from the presidential office. He was defending his decision to declare martial law as a necessary measure to protect South Korea's constitutional order and democracy, which he or free democracy, which he claims are under threat from legislative and political overreach by the Democratic Party and the opposition. He referred to them as anti-state forces and North Korea forces though. Imply that they are anti-state forces. We will go into that later, but right after the announcement what happened a little bit of a context here is that it was also when we

were writing the executive briefing on the Korea-Persia side initially, this was the budget deadline. So there were some aspects about the budget in Yoon's speech, right? So he criticized the opposition for cutting essential budget items, including disaster reserves and etc. And he accused them of legislative tyranny applying to anti-state forces. And then right after that, the defense minister, he ordered a meeting of all major military commanders at 1043 PM. Which was the one that initially reportedly suggested the martial law idea to Yoon, right? Yes, indeed.

And the Ministry of Defense, it strengthened emergency readiness across the military, across the border, and major commanders have convened a session at 1044. Then, around 1042, the Democratic Party urgently called all of its lawmakers to make a trip to the National Assembly Hall in response to Yoon's martial law decoration in order to nullify it. A DP leader also live streamed his trip to the National Assembly, him going over the fence urging people to come to the National Assembly and defend democracy. This was around the time that I arrived at the National Assembly as well.

I hopped on a cab and already a massive crowd was there. Yeah. assembly is why I hopped on a cab and already a massive crowd was there. Yeah and the PPP's Han Dong-hun, he also urged support from the people as well. He opposed directly a UN's martial law declaration vying to block it. And to fight with the people, right? Indeed. National assembly speaker also arrived at the assembly shortly afterwards. The DP leader also arrived under close security and also reportedly hid in another lawmaker's office over worries that he would be arrested. Which as it turns out was not a far-fetched fear. Yes. And former Justice Minister, Cho Guk, leader of the Reform Korea Party,

he also called for martial law repeal and President Yun's impeachment and vowing to fight with the people until the end. Right. And then they kicked off the meeting, right? Yes. And just before that, the National Assembly entry was restricted, only verified personnel were allowed access. And then airborne units attempted to enter the National Assembly through the front gates. Which I saw. Yeah. And then after that, I think we saw on the news live stream as well, martial law enforcers breaking into the National Assembly building by smashing up windows on the side.

These were troops, gongsubu-dae, right? These were airborne troops, yes. I can't believe that happened. And afterward they convened the meeting and did they make a speech, the lawmakers, or did they vote immediately? So the speaker announced, he was urged by all of the opposition lawmakers to make sure that the nullifying process is swift and fast. However, the speaker informed the lawmakers that this needs to be carefully done since that you can make any adjustments.

Reversals. Indeed. So the National Assembly speaker, he immediately concurred with the vote. Afterwards 190 lawmakers, 190 out of 190 lawmakers who were sitting in the National Assembly Hall at the time, they voted to nullify the martial law. Unanimous vote. We almost never see that. Yes. 17 PPP lawmakers, including Han Dong-hun was present. Of course, he wasn't able to vote since he is not a lawmaker, but he was present.

It was quite a bipartisan process while the other PPP lawmakers were in the PPP building. They were not in the National Assembly building. Ten minutes from the National Assembly. I was at the front gate when they were passing that. And then people were live streaming the news broadcast coming out of the National Assembly. And people were the crowd was cheering when they passed the vote to take down the martial law. But then people in front of the front gate also, they were like, you have

we still have to stay here in case anything comes like tanks or troops or whatnot. And people were very adamant that they won't be leaving until Yoon announces that this is reversed. Yeah, so Yoon eventually did announce it reversed after the opposition parties urged him to do so. 4 a.m., right? At 4.30. At 4.30. It was about three hours after the vote actually concurred.

President Yoon did not apologize for- What was his speech? His speech- It was about a minute long. It was about a minute long saying that martial law will be lifted, security forces will be sent back to their bases. He had no apology and he ended his statement by saying,

by or demanding that the National Assembly should confide and make sure that- Stop the impeachment processes against his ministers and officials. They didn't even start it at the time. Uh-huh. Yeah. And Lee Jae-myeong, he declared the repeal of martial law just after the vote, just going back. He emphasized public safety and made sure that he urged all members of the armed forces to not comply with the UN administration's orders, saying that they must act in accordance with the will of the sovereign citizens.

And he tried to assure the public by saying that he will safeguard these principles with their very lives. All right. So that brings us to this morning. This morning, what were the party reactions and what happened at the presidential office after? What came out? Did they know the cabinet members? Well, the cabinet members, according to reports, even the prime minister did not know.

The prime minister did not know the national security office. Only a couple of members knew as well. The floor leader didn't know. Floor leader did not know. The PPP lawmakers did not know. It was very much a unilateral decision by the youth administration or as reports suggest So all of the high-level officials cabinet the Shichang level The top official level including the chief of staff. They all immediately tendered to resign

Yes this morning this morning and the PPP called on a full cabinet reshuffle and also called on the defense minister to be fired from his job. All right, Junot, thank you for breaking that down, exactly what had happened. Now, as soon as I saw the news break out, I left my computer at the office. So I came right to the office. But you, Jung Min, you went straight to the National Assembly. Now, I only saw what was going on there via all the different streaming channels that were on YouTube. Now you were there yourself. You already mentioned some of the things that you saw, but what

exactly did you see while you were there? Well, could you describe to us what happened? Right, so around 1040 when the lawmakers started urging each other to run to the National Assembly to do the vote, I was at the time at the back gate kind of go in with other me and other journalists broadcaster They were all running around the National Assembly because all the gates were blocked by police with shields But police were not confrontational at all. They they kept explaining that this is just an instruction from the higher up Official they can't really change it, but they will figure out when they can bring people inside. So they were actually very apologetic and very gentle, actually, compared to what I initially expected.

Looking at the video, it didn't seem like their hearts were in it. No, no, no. They were just standing there basically and explaining the situation to the people. They, some of the official police officers, they didn't even want to mention March a lot directly. It looked like they felt uncomfortable about it. They were like, you know, this is not a normal situation right now, so please, you know, please wait and we will see what's going on.

And then the choppers, the military choppers came, started coming in. They were flying really, really low. It freaked a lot of people out. Yeah, and they kept flying over and it turns out it was the airborne troops, right? And then started being joined like the group of journalists. We were also joined by the aides to lawmaker offices. They also came back, jumped out of bed and came to the national assembly.

They were also blocked from going in. So even with the national assembly official pass, they couldn't go in including the lawmakers sometimes. They jumped over fences. They jumped over fences. They jumped over fences, but the police did not really like harshly pushed back. They sort of gesture to sort of stop them, but they didn't really. Lee Joon-seok was just yelling at the soldiers and the police officers. Yeah.

But then actually like, I was very impressed by the people yesterday. It was very orderly. People kept chanting no violence to the police and to each other to prevent any violence happening. People were chanting, stop the prosecutor dictatorship, take down the martial law. It's people's country, people's police, blah, blah, blah. Very orderly in a way that when we started hearing on the ground about the news of airborne troops

potentially breaking the window, people started yelling at each other saying, oh, the troops are coming. And then what happened was some of the vanguard figures and the crowd started sort of gathering a few people saying, okay, we need to split into the front gate folks and the back gate folks so that we can, you know, take care of whatever happens in the different locations. So they started marching to the reported place where the troops are coming in. But it was overall very orderly. There was no major violence that I saw overnight and I don't see any reports about it. But it was very surreal. It was not just activists. It was just normal people who were just

going back home from work. I heard students were there as well. Students were there students were their university Gathered families with kids as well a lot of elderly men Like trying to talk to the police officer saying you guys are doing something very wrong. This is against this history This is sent to the history you will regret this so so think again So they were trying to talk each other out of following the instruction So it was overall a very surreal experience. And that was a views from the ground last night. I was there until maybe 2.30 and then I went back home. But so far, what are the major party responses?

What are their plans now? Well, the PPP, as I've just said, the PPP's Han Dong-hun and the floor leader and the committee leadership, they have announced that they will require Yoon to do a full cabinet reshuffle, fire the defense minister. And Han Dong-hun has been quite outspoken in his opposition to the president and the president's martial law declaration, saying that he will fight with the people. The DP on the other hand, along with the other opposition parties, the reform Korea party, the reform party, or new reform party, the Ijen-suk party, they've come together to say that they will move along with the impeachment process very soon.

You mean drafting the impeachment bill? Yes, so Jong-guk has already announced his... I think he has been working on that bill for the past few years. He did, but I think it's quite solidified right now with the martial law declaration. He was quoting that the omission of the president's notice to the National Assembly on the fact that martial law will be declared was something that is glaring factor in his impeachment process that will come up. The DP has announced that they will move forward with the impeachment bill writing process

very soon. It was around an hour ago, right? Yes, and they will probably put it into the plenary session sometime tomorrow. When we have been talking about or when we were asked in the past few years, will Yoon be impeached? We used to say, oh, he doesn't have the opposition does not have the headcount for it. Plus, one of the things that I always said that the ruling party would never agree because we already had a president impeached before.

And this was, that was a precedent. This would be a pattern and they would not have agreed to it. But now they can't not agree. And it will look very bad from, you know, for PPP's optics as well. With just stepping back a little bit for a second, impeachment, even the bill to pass national assembly or for it to be tabled to the national assembly, it requires hard proof, evidence of very clearly unconstitutional behavior from the president during his term or illegal activities.

Do you think that this counts as illegal or unconstitutional activity? If so, what part of this announcement was it? Well, the Democratic Party leader Lee Jae Myung, he was saying, and he said this repeatedly now that the whole thing was illegal from the very get-go because he was saying that according to the Constitution and according to the Martial Law Act, in order for the presidents to invoke martial law, he needs to get through the cabinet.

He needs to talk through the National Security Council. But because so many of these cabinet members and also the party members are saying, we didn't know about this, we only learned about this through the news, the president... And leader of the cabinet is also prime minister as well, right? Which the prime minister says that he didn't know about this. We only learned about this through the news. And leader of the cabinet is also prime minister as well, right? Which the prime minister says that he didn't know about it either.

And so that means that the president did it without his cabinet. He did it unilaterally by himself and maybe with just a defense minister. Now, if that's the case, this was a violation of the law from the very get-go. And everything that happened as a result of it was illegal. And so Lee Jae Myung was saying it's illegal and this is grounds for accountability, which means impeachment and removal from office. And so yes, I do think that this is the perfect justification that anyone ever needed to remove

Yoon Jung Yyeon from office. Also, it's likely the Lee Jae-myeong's likely presidency on a silver platter, it seems, but we will talk about that later a little more. But for now, let's go back to Yoon's speech. It was quite something. If anyone watched it online being live streamed, it was a very particular tone and manner and the rhetoric.

I'll go to John first. Looking at the speech, what do you think was the trigger for him to do this? Well, it was a long laundry list of grievances. The first thing that he mentioned was that since he became president, the opposition parties have tried to impeach 22 of his officials. And he included people like the interior minister, whom they tried to impeach after the Itaewon crowd crush incident. Who is still interior minister.

And they are right now got a list of 10 prosecutors who they also want to impeach. And the president was saying that this has quote-unquote paralyzed the government. And that wasn't the only thing that he also mentioned. He also mentioned the politicization of the budgeting policies, which I did not understand why he had to mention that because that's what they've been doing forever. Also, that's the law-given right of the National Assembly

to fight over it, and debate over it, and disagree over it, and negotiate. To actually invoke martial law over budgetary differences, over budgetary debates, that was just astounding. That I think also it's an area of interpretation for DP to say, that's also unconstitutional, right? But the big thing, which I think really triggered the president, was the First Lady.

The opposition parties have tried to table numerous special investigations against the First Lady because there are many allegations against her. But anytime they table these investigations, the president vetoed them one at a time, but every time he vetoed them, the opposition kept bringing it back. And the president has always been very sensitive about the first lady. And I think that this, after he tried to just suppress it as much as possible,

it just finally blew up. And of course, this really speaks to the kinds of temperament that this man has always had. We've always heard rumors about how he yelled and screamed at his ministers during the cabinet meetings and this just goes to show what kind of person he really is. To Junha, you are working on a piece potentially for Korea Pro about this why part as well. What's your initial impression from the speech?

Like what triggered Yoon aside from this? Well, I have to agree with John. The experts also have that I have spoken to have also agreed with John's take that it was in response to the first lady and also the budget constraints that were going on with the National Assembly since day one. He even mentioned in his press conference that he did not want to go to the National Assembly because of the fact that he was facing too much opposition, that he was being berated. That's why they're called opposition. And that's why he's called the president, not the emperor. And that is what democracy is.

But of course, Yoon, in his speech, he alleged that the assembly is fostering anti-state activities aiming to subvert South Korea's constitutional systems and Yoon framed the move as a last resort to restore governance. What was the first resort? I have no idea. I think that everyone's still trying to make sense of why Yoon actually went forward with this decision to introduce national martial law. Also, it's a bad calculation as well because they just reversed it in two and a half hours. And on a Tuesday evening, on a weekday, when all of the lawmakers will have probably been

in the vicinity of the National Assembly, it is something that is not logistically planned out. So all in all, it does not look like... It wasn't a smart move. It wasn't even a well-planned martial law. He shot himself in the foot. Look, not that I support or endorse martial law or coup d'etat, but if you're gonna do it, do it during Christmas

or during Chuseok when everyone's away, when no one's paying attention. Don't give them ideas, John. But no, he did it on a Tuesday night when exactly what Junha just said, when everyone's still right around the neighborhood. Indeed. And I think that the president, he will have to answer for a lot of his, the questions that are surrounding his two speeches that he delivered yesterday,

the second speech having no apparent apology for the chaos that was. He's not going to the apologies. We knew that. Yeah. But the chaos that ensued within the National Assembly, we know, you know, we saw barricades in the National Assembly, you know, people smashing into windows in a 2024 democracy. Soldiers were smashing windows to storm the National Assembly. This makes January 6th look like child's play. I wouldn't go there. But I think I think if you're an NK news listener.

Korea Pro Podcast is usually like this. Yes, yes. But I think that the scenes that we saw yesterday through the live streams, also what Jungman saw on the ground, you know, the people that were on the ground, as Jungman mentioned, they are quite the vanguards of the democracy of yesterday. I think that they deserve a ton of credit from the South Korean public and also the international community for maintaining the peaceful resolutions that they were going for on the ground, including the National Assembly lawmaker aides that were within the

National Assembly. There was a video of the DP spokesperson, Ah Gideon, who had a gun pointed at her by a soldier that was on a martial law enforcer. And she was holding onto the rifle. She was wrestling the soldier with the rifle. And it was an incredible show of defiance, I think. And it was a symbol of what was a testament to the night as something that lawmakers came together,

national assemblymen came together to make sure that the erosion of our democracy did not happen. Sorry, this is South Korea, right? Indeed. Now, okay, as much as I hate to defend anything that happened last night, I did take a very close look at the rifles and the handguns that the soldiers were carrying, and they were blanks. Yeah. Yeah. There was a report this morning as well. There were holes down at the handle of the guns that they were carrying or they had blue magazines which were used

for firing blanks during those military practices. And so they did not appear to carry live ammunition. But yes. But people on the ground cannot see that. It's not very easy to see. No. And it's a symbolization. Let's actually touch on before we move on to the North Korea bit of angle that we need to touch on.

I actually wanted to raise something. Head of martial law enforcement was not chairman of the JCS. No. But ROK army chief. Yes. Why was this? And what's the implications of this? JCS chairman this morning, he was cleaning up the mess, instructing all military that from now on, for the time being, all the military movement has to go through me.

Well, there's again speculation that this was an unilateral decision when it comes to that, you know, under, you know, regular times, if a martial law is declared, the JCS chief, as you just mentioned, would be the head of the martial, he would if a martial law is declared, the JCS chief, as you just mentioned, would be the head of the martial, he would be the martial law commander. However, in this case, the ROK Army chief, Park An-soo Dae-jang, he was appointed as military commander and immediately afterwards, they made sure that they released the martial law declaration. The proclamation.

The proclamation saying that all of the media will be controlled by the army and the martial law enforcement. So this is something that I think is still raising a lot of questions within the media community and also the political community saying why was this decision made? And it only goes to show that Yoon was acting very much without any communication within his cabinet, within his defense officials. Including military.

Including military. One of the critics that were on the ground yesterday, I saw a Twitter post and some analysis on local media today is that the command on the scene at the National Assembly, it was incredibly unfitting. You know, it was chaotic. There was no order between the military. While some soldiers were trying to enforce forcefully, some commanders can be heard saying,

oh, don't go too forcefully, or they're trying to hold back. And then they smash windows, smash the doors of the DP chief Lee Jae-myeong's office. You know, this is something that was... So that they can block them from voting. Yeah. So this, the reason why martial law was enforced to the national assembly immediately instead of to the general public as it would be on a normal proclamation or declaration. This is something that was definitely aimed at barring the national assembly from trying to nullify the declaration.

Rather than the general public. It really did appear like he was trying to have his cake and eat it too. He wanted to go after his perceived enemies, the media, the opposition. He wanted to go after them, but he did not want to alienate the public, which is why the 17% of the public that still supports him. And which is why even though he declared martial law, he did not shut off the internet, he did not shut off public transportation. he did not shut off the internet. He did not shut off public transportation.

And so, Yonah was just reporting everything by the second as things were happening. This is not how martial laws tend to happen. This was very incompetently done. Thank goodness it was. But okay, we have to move on now because we do have our NK News listeners. And so, we've talked about how Yoon was going after his opponents and made the long laundry

list but he referred to them as North Korea forces, anti-state forces. And he has a long history of doing this. And Chung Min, you've been covering this for a long time. Could you explain to us why he used these particular phrases? Let me mention the exact wording that he used first. He said, Dear citizens, today I am announcing the emergency martial law in order to protect the free South Korea Republic of Korea from North Korean communist forces threat. And also the pro-North anti-state forces that are despicably trying to steal away our people's freedom and happiness. I want to remove them at once and protect our constitutional order.

This was his sentence when he was referring to North Korea. It was very out of nowhere. But if you look at the entire speech, it looks like first this was maybe not a good strategy but strategic because as a commander in chief, in the past, when I say in the past, 40 years ago, it is something like security issue. It's something sometimes the president is allowed to make certain executive orders and decisions in order to protect national security. So it seems like by mentioning North Korea, anti-state forces not just the budget. I think he was trying to find the

justification to do something as extreme as martial law, but was the anti-state forces and pro-North Korean forces as big of a threat as he explains? And were there any actually North Korean forces as big of a threat as he explains. And were there any actually North Korean troops walking around? So that's a, that's a big question, which leads to my second point of why he probably mentioned anti-state forces in North Korea. I have had long doubts about Yoon's cabinet aid selections in the past two years. I have flagged some of them in my profile pieces

for Korea Pro and NK News, including the defense minister Kim Jong-un. I've been monitoring their past remarks and current remarks as incumbent ministers and vice ministers. Some of them have very particular views, worldviews about liberal democracy and what North Korea is, communist forces. They have any of them have, not many of them, few of them have very straightforward Cold War era thinking, even Korean War era thinking, saying North Korea is actively trying to subvert the South Korean society. Maybe that is true to some extent, perhaps. North Korea never really gave up its ultimate goal of like, right now it's hypothetical,

but you know, subjugating South Korean territory if there is a need that that was what Kim Jong-un said earlier this year, right? So there is that, but he is taking this a lot of aides have been taking this to a whole other level in the August 15 speech and other speeches, major speeches where Yoon was announcing the unification policies and other stuff saying there are anti-state forces and pro-North Korea forces in Korea that are doing this conveying of propaganda that North Korea makes. This has been Yoon's constant argument that popped up once in a while, right? So far, argument that popped up once in a while, right? So far, I merely thought that this is maybe an ideological philosophy that he sort of

holds personally. I thought it will be very risky for a president to actually make a move as extreme as Martian law based on this. But this sort of proves that that was actually Yoon's worldview, that his aid sort of helped him create this bubble and he was residing in it. And he actually believed when he say, because of anti-state forces and North Korea threat, I'm doing a martial law, the fact that he thought that some people might go along with it, it says something about his worldview that he held so far in the past two years.

So this is what I think, why I think North Korea mention was included into that big announcement. But being in North Korea's shoes, Junha and John, how will North Korea be interpreting this and how will they take advantage of this? Yeah. So just reading up on all of the analyses that were written on North Korea's potential responses to the South Korea's Yoon attempting to go ahead with martial law, you know, there's quite a lot of potentials that are out there in terms of military. So Pyongyang, they've sent quite a number of anti-Yun leaflets across the border over the past couple of weeks. You know, Pyongyang could intensify these efforts, also disinformation efforts. Now it's full of political means that they can use, right?

Yeah. And it will work now. And they're double-sided as well. And loudspeaker broadcasts will continue on, I'm guessing. Targeted cyber attacks could also happen. Will they mention the martial law into loudspeaker though? That'll be interesting if they did. I think the residents of Ganghwa will be probably enlightened, hopefully not.

And the potential military escalation that could happen, North Korea could use the ensuing political tensions to conduct any missile tests that will go on, any GPS jamming near the NLL that could happen, also disrupting civilian and military practices within the Incheon region, including the airports in Gimpo as well. And there is an alternative approach for legitimacy. So North Korea could hold back on... The opposite strategy. Yeah. Yeah.

North Korea could hold back on its provocation. I bet on this one, actually. Yeah. It could present itself as to the international community and also as a goal to the Korean Peninsula as a more stable, legitimate sort of... The calm one. Yes, compared to President Yun, how that will succeed, I think we need to wait and find out. And you guys should see John's face right now.

I'm not sure how substantive North Korea's gains will be, but one thing that it will definitely gain in is its propaganda efforts. Since the Koreas were divided, well, perhaps not since the beginning, but at least since the late 80s and early 90s, South Korea was the one that portrayed itself as the good Korea. The democratic one. The responsible one. The responsible one. The one that doesn't test nuclear weapons. But now with this martial law, the North Koreans will say, you're the good ones, you're the

democratic ones, really? Are you really that much better than us? And that's going to cost South Korea so much because South Korea depends so much on the goodwill of the international community. And now everyone else is going to be looking at Korea and saying, what the hell is going on over there? And that's going to be the thing that North Korea can really take away from this, I think. Right. And so I think the lawmakers' consensus response and the people's, the public's response

last night is why I think that was why it was very important because despite what the leader did, despite what the president did, I think the institutional aspect of democracy, I think it worked quite well. The institutions worked. Yeah, they did their role. They played their job. And they did it quickly. And they did it incredibly quickly, you know, two hours and 45 minutes of a martial law

enforcement. That's not a really great record internationally of how martial laws really do play out. Also, when it comes to North Korea military aggression possibility, the reason why I bet against it is because Yun mentioned North Korea in the speech. If they actually look like an active threat to South Korea, that will only do to

Be an evidence to what you has, you know explained when he was announcing martial law and why help him when he's burying himself Exactly and stay calm and look responsible and say hey look Yoon's speech was Had no grounds. He's doing that all on his own. We had nothing to do with it kind of thing. If I were North Korea, I would go down that road probably. John, what now? Well, before this whole thing happened, we have to remember that yes, while the Democratic Party did seek impeachment against certain individuals within the UN administration, they never sought to impeach UN himself. I mean, they mentioned it rhetorically.

But never actually pursued it in the National Assembly. Because there's no active proof of unconstitutional behavior. The one minor party that did that was the one that Chokok leads, the reform party, I'm sorry, the rebuilding Korea party. But now, now that we've seen exactly all of this play out, Lee Jae-mung has given the president 48 hours to resign. And if he doesn't resign within 48 hours, then they're going to go into impeachment mode. And we've already seen this play out with Park Geun Hae before. The National Assembly will have to vote to impeach him.

The Constitutional Court will have to agree with the impeachment. And after that, he'll be removed from power. The Prime Minister, Han Deok Soo, will become acting president. And he'll be removed from power. The prime minister, Han Deok-soo, will become acting president and there'll be a new election. And this will be just another constitutional mess that happens all over again. It changes the presidential election date again. Again. And also just to add to the constitutional court, currently they have six members, six judges.

You need seven in order to pass an impeachment. So the reason why there is only six was because the DP held back on recommendations for constitutional court judges. They can still recommend these judges so they can bring the number up to seven if they need to impeach. However, that is still waiting to be seen of whether the PPP actually respects that within the National Assembly and passes it on to. So I think the main, because you brought up the impeachment of Park Geun-hye sort of comparison, I think the main difference between then and now is at the time, the similarity is that sure, there has been, there were major incidents before the whole impeachment thing started. But the difference is at the time during Park Geun-hye's impeachment, there was this

whole months of deliberation within the conservative party about what to do with this. But with yesterday's case, the whole, everybody in PPP agreed that martial law is a bad thing. And they are right now worried about their own political futures. They don't want to be tied to this president right now. He is sinking faster than a ton of bricks. So right, there would be a lot of defection votes if this actually gets tabled to the National Assembly, and we will keep an eye on it very closely.

We still have a lot to monitor in the coming days and weeks, and we will try to come back to this topic in next week's podcast episode as well. But any last comments? It's not PG-13. Okay, next, Jun-ho? Yeah, I think that the events that we saw unfold yesterday, it was an incredible test on South Korea's democracy.

It was like fragile and strong at the same time. Yeah. But I think that as I mentioned before, all full credit must be given to the lawmakers and also the people on the ground who made sure that the democracy that we have fought as a country to protect for the past couple of years was actually protected. So I think that that is something alike. I hope that in the two occasions when President Yun Jong-yeol met with former President Park Geun-hye, he got all the advice that he needed to get about how to live behind bars.

Okay, and this brings to the end of this special NK News slash Korea Pro episode. Now for those of you who are interested in this, please continue to subscribe to NK News and Korea Pro where you can get all of the most latest information that you need to stay ahead of the curve. And we are working on all sorts of analysis regarding this and the future and immediate consequences. And if you have any topic ideas that you would want us to discuss in NK News or Korea Pro Podcast or write something

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