I love the Republic of Korea. It is a country I can visit over and over without ever tiring of its people, food, culture, or history. South Korea stands on the frontier of democracy and is technically still at war with North Korea, the communist backwater that is within striking distance of Seoul. That’s why it is important that South Korea’s democracy remains healthy.

The Koreans I have met respectfully know more about Australia’s historical commitment to Korea’s democracy than many Australians do. Three-hundred and forty Australians made the ultimate sacrifice to help keep Korea free from tyranny. In recent times, the Republic of Korea has been a model democracy.

But on December 3, President Yoon declared martial law, with pundits hinting at a return to Korea’s bad old days of military control before it adopted democracy in 1987. The June Uprising forced the military regime to hold elections and introduce democratic reforms. This led to the creation of the Sixth Republic which still exists today.

The simple fact is that Korea’s democracy is not under threat, but working as it should.

Six hours later (or three hours according to some locals), the National Assembly, including members of Yoon’s own party, voted against the declaration of martial law and martial law ended.

Under Korea’s constitution, the President can declare martial law during ‘wartime, war-like situations or other comparable national emergency states’. However, if a majority of the National Assembly voted against the declaration, the President must rescind the order. That is exactly what happened.

Yoon declared martial law to address ‘anti-state activities’. He also referred to the opposition as:

‘…shameless pro-North Korean anti-state forces who are plundering the freedom and happiness of our citizens.’

Many of my colleagues in Korea have said the event was ‘bizarre and embarrassing’.

However, the process has demonstrated Korea’s democratic credentials, as opposed to a return to its authoritarian and corrupt past.

Martial law strictly curtails many of the freedoms we take for granted, including freedom of speech, assembly, the press, and movement. If you want to know what that feels like, imagine what Melbourne was like during the Covid pandemic. (This is the bizarre double standard applied to Korea by some commentators who are happy to wax lyrical about Korea’s woes while doing nothing when it happened in their own backyard.)

According to some of my colleagues in Korea, the recent brouhaha over martial law was like night and day to what happened 45 years ago. They suggest that back then, Korea had martial law imposed with every new season, soldiers guarded entrances to universities, and the smell of tear gas wafted over Seoul.

Today, however, Korea’s democracy is functioning well. It has an engaged and active civil society where talk of presidential impeachment and resignations are all part and parcel of a functioning democracy.

President Yoon of the conservative People Power Party was elected in 2022 with a 0.7 per cent margin, the narrowest in Korea’s presidential election history. To prevent authoritarian rule, Korean presidents serve a single, five-year term in accordance with the constitution.

Yoon’s presidency began with a 53 per cent approval rating in his first year that fell dramatically to 23 per cent in September 2024. As of Friday December 6, Yoon’s approval rating had collapsed to just 13 per cent.

Respondents to the September 2024 Gallup poll cited Yoon’s handling of the ongoing young doctors strike, intense rivalry with the Democratic Party, allegations of political interference in an investigation into the death of a Marine corporal during a flood search and rescue operation, failure to manage relations with North Korea, and Yoon’s alleged suppression of press freedoms as reasons for growing dissatisfaction with his leadership.

Further, Yoon’s presidency has been marked by scandal including his wife’s receipt of an expensive Dior handbag.

She has also been accused of ‘falsifying her resume, academic plagiarism as well as allegedly participating in a stock manipulation scheme’.

Some allege that Yoon declared martial law to prevent scrutiny of his wife, Kim Keon-hee. Others suggest it was an attempt by Yoon to challenge the Democratic Party’s majority in the Assembly. It’s hard to decipher at the moment with the Defence Minister resigning over his advice to the President, and the Prime Minister now suggesting he and the entire cabinet will resign.

However, the Prime Minister asked to resign back in April after the defeat in the National Assembly, so we might take what he says for now with a grain of salt, at least on the basis of currently available intelligence.

Probably most importantly, Yoon’s wife’s behaviour has been at the heart of a growing rift between the President and the People Power Party leader, Han Dong-hoon. Their uneasy alliance has declined in direct proportion to Yoon’s decline in popularity. It may be a move by Han to secure his more than obvious ambition to become a future president. But only time will tell.

What is becoming increasingly obvious is that, following the bizarre declaration of martial law, Yoon is more than likely to be impeached. As of late Friday 6 December, Han Dong-hoon has reversed his previous position and is now supporting Yoon’s impeachment, citing evidence that Yoon intended to arrest several political rivals using his martial law powers.

Conversely, an impeachment would suspend Yoon’s powers until the Constitutional Court rules to remove him from office or restore his powers.

Impeachment requires the support of two-thirds of the National Assembly. The People Power Party holds 108 out of the 300 Assembly seats. While the opposition Democratic Party won a landslide victory at the 2024 National Assembly election, it still needs the support of some of the People Power Party members to impeach Yoon. Given Yoon’s poor standing within his own party, impeachment is now more probable than possible.

Yoon’s actions may have ‘shocked’ many supporters of democracy, but his actions reflect contemporary political tactics that are designed to distract and disrupt. And the collapse of the Korean government is not that dissimilar to the recent collapse of the French government.

In any case, Yoon’s tactic appears to have backfired spectacularly. His actions may be ‘bizarre and embarrassing’, but the response by the democratically elected representatives of the Korean people and the restraint displayed by the Korean military prove that the Sixth Republic’s mature democracy is safe and sound.

Byline: Dr Michael de Percy @FlaneurPolitiq is a political scientist and political commentator. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILTA), and a Member of the Royal Society of NSW. He is Managing Editor of the Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, Chairman of the ACT and Southern NSW Chapter of CILTA, and a member of the Australian Nuclear Association. Michael is a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon and was appointed to the College of Experts at the Australian Research Council in 2022. All opinions in this article are the author’s own and are not intended to reflect the views of any other person or organisation.