South Korea’s martial law overturned after cabinet vote | ABC News

there are dramatic scenes on the streets of Soul as we go to air this morning with the South Korean president sensationally backing down just hours after he sent shock waves through the country by declaring martial law hundreds of protesters descended on Parliament as police blocked the entrance following that initial declaration inside MPS appeared to clash with troops attempting to enter before the opposition called enough of them together to force the president to back down it has been a very fast developing situ our North Asia correspondent James tin is following it all for us James okay

talk us through what exactly happened overnight good morning well as you can see behind me the sun is now rising and it's 6:00 local time in South Korea and it's amazing to think that some people waking up now and reading the news and thinking what on Earth happened last night because it was only around 11:00 just before midnight uh that President Yun sukul announced that he was going to impose martial law which is essentially a form of military style government used for extreme circumstances where the civilian government cannot function it means there's a lot of

sweeping restrictions put on people their right together sweeping restrictions on politicians and the media uh but what was the reason well he cited it was regarding threats from North Korea now relations between North and South Korea pretty hostile but there's been nothing in in the past few days that would seem as an obvious justification for this decision what many observers are saying is this was an extreme attempt to break a political deadlock president yunsuk Yul is from the conservative people power party uh but the parliament is controlled by the opposition left leaning Democratic party and

he's been unable to get the legislation through that he's wanted the budget recently was massively chopped down in size and there's been a lot of corruption allegations against his administration including his own wife for accepting a deal bag so he announced this decision martial law at 11:00 perhaps it was trying to get the opposition off foot because everyone should have been asleep by that time the military and police moved in surrounded the National Assembly we've seen some pretty violent scenes there but the opposition did get their members into Parliament they voted unanimously to scrap marshal

law it's a little tense for a while but eventually the military did step down and the president said he would acknowledge or uh he would adhere to that vote and would scrap martial la which has now happened uh so it's still a you know it's something to watch now given the violence or the um uncertainty we've seen overnight certainly Australia's Finance Minister kti Gallagher had this warning for Australians who are in South Korea message we can give on this unfolding situation is for any Australians in South Korea uh to really um listen to official advice

and you know not stay away from some of the Mass Gatherings uh as we continue to get across and understand the full implications of what's happened overnight so we have seen some pretty uh vocal protests overnight and it should be expected that these protests will continue even though martial law has been revoked I guess the big question now that needs answering is what was President Yun thinking what was his grand plan here in imposing martial law only to backflip a few hours later no doubt this will have a huge detrimental impact on his popularity which

is already uh extremely low and his reputational damage will take a long time to recover from this