South Korea's Troubled History with Martial Law | Vantage with Palki Sharma

we've seen a lot of people asking the same questions why did this happen and how in South Korea isn't it supposed to be a stable democracy we'll try to answer both these questions tonight and here's the first thing that you need to know president Yun is struggling politically his approval ratings are low he does not control the Parliament and he is m in corruption scandals instead of riding it out he chose the nuclear option risky and amateur move let me take you back to the year 2022 that's when Yun sukol won the presidential election in

South Korea he came with an ambitious agenda just one problem though his party did not control the parliament the opposition Democratic party held the majority in Parliament meaning president Yun could not get work done his policies and his proposals were shot down in Parliament elections happened again in 2024 and once again the opposition got a majority so Yun was reduced to a lame duck president the opposition would pass their own legislations and Yun would veto them he used The veto at least 11 times since taking office yesterday he did allude to this problem Yun cited

policy paralysis in government basically he was frustrated about being powerless that was the first Factor the second Factor was a corruption scandals most of them involve his wife She's accused of stock manipulation accepting gifts s in exchange for favors and of election meddling all of this has dropped yun's approval ratings to 25 it was almost 53% after his inauguration now it's 25% so to recap Yun was stuck and unpopular a seasoned leader may have rode it out rode out the storm or found a tactical solution but president Yun is a political novice he was a

prosecutor for most of his life his first foray into politics was the 20 22 presidential election and clearly the inexperience showed which brings us to the second question we are addressing tonight how did this happen in South Korea well democracy is new in this country until the late 1980s it was ruled by dictators and strong men they used to impose martial law regularly there have been 16 instances since 1948 I know it seems Unthinkable in modern day South Korea but look at their history it is riddled with takeovers assassinations and crackdowns the first military coup

was in 1961 army officer Park chungi LED soldiers into Soul he declared martial law and banned political activities Park went on to rule for almost 20 years the second coup was in 1979 less than 2 months after Park's death and another general led soldiers and tanks into Soul that's two military takeovers in seven decades decades even otherwise South Korea's presidents have had troubled careers some have been overthrown some have been jailed a couple have been impeached and one died by Suicide a lot of these presidents turned to martial law most of them gave the same

reason as president Yun a supposed communist threat from North Korea now we not saying that pongyang is not a problem but the last threat we saw was poop filled balloons flying over the Border I'm sure that does not Merit a martial law and I know this this one lasted only 6 hours but for a lot of people it was traumatic because it brought back memories they know what comes after martial law is declared critics get rounded up politicians get arrested protesters are brutally silenced that's what happened in 1960 Korean students were protesting against South Korea's

first president he used martial law to suppressed them more than 180 people were killed in the Crackdown that followed the same thing happened in 1980 citizens in the city of guangju protested against the president in response martial law was declared and some 200 people were killed there are very painful memories for South Koreans here and yesterday they briefly relived it last night I happened to wake up from my sleep and came across the news at first I was scared and very confused I kept thinking what is going on is this something that could actually happen

in this era I couldn't sleep until the martial law was lifted because I was so frightened it was an experience that I've only seen in movies and I realized how much more serious it is than I had imagined the current economic condition is difficult and the fact that the president is causing such anxiety among residents makes the situation so much worse but credit to them because they fought to protect their freedoms even in the dead of the night they turned up protesters blocked military vehicles opposition parties mobilized and even yun's own lawmakers stood up to

him clearly South Korea was not about to hit rewind credit also to Korean officials until the 1980s martial law could be declared unilaterally no Parliament approval was required Korean politicians added that clause in the80s and that's how this crisis was averted I wish I could say all's well that ends well but this is a warning to South Korea and all other democracies never take your freedoms for granted and keep strengthening your laws and institutions because leaders like Yun will always exist our best option is to be alert and build God rails for