This year has commenced in an historic fashion for South Korea – albeit for all the wrong reasons. Earlier today, South Korean authorities arrested the suspended – but still sitting – president, Yoon Suk Yeol, on charges of corruption and inciting insurrection, after several weeks of the embattled leader evading this outcome. Today marks the first time in history that a sitting South Korean president had been arrested, plunging South Korea once again into unchartered waters. Domestic politics in Asia’s fourth-largest economy looks like it will only get messier.
It has been a tempestuous month in South Korean politics. For all the personal scandals, skulduggery, and schisms within his party (the People Power party), Yoon Suk Yeol’s presidency will forever be stained with his short-lived declaration and retraction of martial law on 3 December. Deploying the nuclear option in domestic politics, Yoon’s justification – namely to protect South Korea from ‘anti-state’ and ‘pro-North Korean’ forces – plunged the country into confusion.
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