The impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol is a critical first step in reversing the country’s authoritarian slide.
On April 4, South Korea’s Constitutional Court unanimously upheld the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol. In early December 2024, Yoon had declared martial law, promising to restore liberal democracy by first upending it. The “self-coup” only lasted six hours, foiled by a swift and unanimous legislative veto and civic activism. Yoon was later impeached and charged with insurrection – one of two crimes (treason is the other) in South Korea that do not enjoy presidential immunity. Yoon will now face a separate criminal trial on the insurrection charge.
The court’s ruling this week makes Yoon the second-ever president in South Korea to be removed from office. In 2016, President Park Geun-hye was impeached, and the Constitutional Court confirmed her impeachment in 2017. Park was later sentenced to 24 years in prison for corruption and abuses of power. In Yoon’s case, the court reasoned that the president’s exercise of emergency powers was unjustified, lacked due process, and infringed on the fundamental freedoms of South Korean citizens. The opposition Democratic Party welcomed the April 2025 verdict as a “people’s victory,” which Yoon’s ruling party “humbly” accepted.
But Yoon’s departure is unlikely to fix South Korea’s democratic crisis on its own. The problem is deeply rooted, stemming from the country’s flawed constitutional design. Increasing political polarization has exacerbated governmental dysfunction. Less than four decades after transitioning to democracy, South Korea now shows visible signs of nostalgia for the authoritarian past. Yoon is a product, rather than an engineer, of these trends. Reversing the political trends will require more than just holding him individually accountable.
The president is too strong
The most fundamental issue lies in the country’s constitutional design – what political scientist Juan Linz once referred to as the “perils of presidentialism.” In South Korea, the executive enjoys considerable powers, including the authority to appoint people, draft budgets, and shape policy. The president also reigns supreme over the courts and the legislature. This concentration of power in the presidency is a legacy of South Korea’s authoritarian rule, when other branches of the government served more symbolic roles.
Scholars and policymakers alike have long called for constitutional changes to limit presidential powers. Proposals vary widely, from adopting a parliamentary system or a semi-presidential system to replacing the single five-year presidential term with two four-year terms. But updating South Korea’s constitution is difficult, and requires both a legislative vote and a national referendum. These barriers have left the balance of constitutional powers unchanged since 1987, when the country transitioned to democracy. Any constitutional changes will require broad support across political parties and the public to pass – and, importantly, to stick.
South Korea’s parties are too divided
This leads to another problem: political polarization. South Korea has become a deeply polarized society. Given the Cold War context in which the country’s democratic struggles emerged, political ideologies have been more strongly shaped by national identity issues – concerning North Korea, Japan, and the United States – than by programmatic agendas. The result is that political parties are easily susceptible to identitarian disputes that hinder meaningful policy discussions. And in recent years, new divisions in class, gender, and regionalism have further fueled mass polarization in South Korea.
These divisions drive a penchant for zero-sum politics – the belief that any gains by the other is one’s loss. This has resulted in the rise of negative partisanship – when people act in opposition to parties they dislike rather than in support of parties they like. And voters rarely change their political loyalties. A good example: Even after Yoon’s self-coup, many conservative Koreans continued to support his party, driven by habit, and out of the fear that the opposition might seize power.
Why some South Koreans appear nostalgic for authoritarian rule
Compounding these problems is a growing nostalgia for the authoritarian past, particularly among the far right. Central to this phenomenon is Park Chung-hee, a polarizing figure and South Korea’s president from 1961 to 1979. South Koreans remember Park for his dictatorial rule and collaboration with Japan, as well as his role in driving South Korea’s economic transformation. Many view Park fondly as a national hero who led the country out of poverty, and helped create an economy surpassing that of communist North Korea. These sentiments ultimately played a role in helping his daughter Park Geun-hye win the presidency in 2012.
Today, this nostalgia has solidified into a partisan narrative that claims the country needs strong leadership to defend against communist threats. Conservative presidents have increasingly relied on this narrative to suppress political opposition, the free press, and civil society organizations such as trade unions. When Yoon declared martial law, he also cited the threats “pro-North, anti-state elements” posed within the country. These types of anti-communist appeals had surged under Yoon’s leadership as he implored the “new right” movement to whitewash – if not glorify – South Korea’s authoritarian past.
What happens now?
South Korea’s next president will now have the opportunity to begin tackling these ongoing challenges to democracy. Yoon’s formal removal from office now means South Korea must hold a new election within 60 days. Until then, Prime Minister Han Duk-soo will serve as an acting president. In South Korea, the president is elected by direct popular vote, in a single election round and on a first-past-the-post basis. This means that by June 3, 2025, we will know who will lead the country for the next five, very challenging, years.
The front-runner in this snap election is opposition leader Lee Jae-myung. The timing of the court’s ruling is critical as it allows Lee, who faces multiple legal troubles of his own, to run for office before being potentially disqualified. On March 25, 2025, he was acquitted of lying on the campaign trail about a bribery scandal. Lee had received a suspended prison sentence in November 2024 for this crime. Despite these ongoing controversies, Lee has built a loyal following of supporters who view him as a progressive icon with a compelling rags-to-riches story. Many observers expect Lee, who faces no clear challenger in the ruling party, to win the race.
Regardless of who wins the upcoming election, South Korea’s next president will face the same crucial task: rolling back the country’s authoritarian slide. This will require building bipartisan support for constitutional amendments to end the imperial presidency. South Koreans are generally supportive of such change. The bigger question is whether the ruling and opposition parties can move past their zero-sum politics to neutralize the far right and restore constitutional order. Should they fail to do so, South Korea may soon find itself in another democratic crisis.
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