Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol just got ousted. What’s next?

Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was ousted on Friday, 1,060 days after he took office, leaving behind a deeply divided country in the aftermath of his ill-fated, six-hour martial law declaration.

Yoon became the second Korean president to be impeached and removed from office. He was nearly three years into his five-year term. The former prosecutor general followed in the footsteps of ex-President Park Geun-hye who was ousted on March 10, 2017, for abuse of power and corruption, making way for an early presidential election in May of that year.

While the unanimous Constitutional Court decision is seen by political analysts as a sign of the country’s democratic resilience, Korea is now scrambling to prepare for an early presidential election to take place within the next 60 days, or by June 3 at the latest.

In turn, the next Korean president faces an even more daunting task of overcoming a six-month leadership vacuum, uniting a deeply polarized country and restoring domestic stability to deal with a rapidly changing global economic and security landscape in light of U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to office in January and an emboldened North Korea growing even closer with Russia.

What’s next for Yoon?  

Yoon’s presidential powers were formally stripped as of 11:22 a.m. Friday, the moment the Constitutional Court announced its impeachment verdict.   In an 8-0 vote, the Constitutional Court justices upheld the parliamentary impeachment of Yoon for imposing martial law on Dec. 3.

The eight justices reached a verdict 111 days after the National Assembly, controlled by the liberal Democratic Party (DP), voted to impeach Yoon for his short-lived martial law imposition.

Yoon was accused of illegally declaring martial law, attempting to unlawfully suspend all political activities, sending special forces to prevent lawmakers from overturning his decree, deploying troops to the National Election Commission and ordering the arrest of high-ranking politicians and judges.

The Constitutional Court acknowledged all five grounds for impeachment.   Friday’s Constitutional Court verdict doesn’t impact the outcome of the separate criminal trial against Yoon on charges of inciting an insurrection, which can be punishable with life in prison or the death penalty.

It is unclear when Yoon will vacate the presidential residence in Hannam-dong, Yongsan District, taking into account security concerns. The move could come as soon as this weekend.

In 2017, then President Park Geun-hye moved out of the presidential residence in the Blue House compound in central Seoul two days after the Constitutional Court ruling.   Yoon moved into the current Hannam-dong presidential residence, remodeled from the old foreign minister’s residence, in November 2022.

The move came after he moved the presidential office from the Blue House to the Defense Ministry compound at the beginning of his administration in May 2022.   It is likely Yoon and his wife, Kim Keon Hee, will return to their private residence in Seocho District, southern Seoul, though security could pose an issue since they live in a publicly known apartment complex.

They could ultimately be forced to find another residence, which means it could take them longer to move out of Hannam-dong.   Yoon’s ouster has stripped him of presidential rights and privileges, but the Presidential Security Service (PSS) will continue to provide some protection in his capacity as a former leader for five years, which could be extended another five years depending on circumstances.

Police take over security afterwards.   Likewise, Yoon will not be provided other privileges offered to former presidents, like support from three aides and a personal driver, or a pension of about 15 million won ($10,300) per month, or 95 percent of the presidential salary. He will no longer be offered legal immunity against prosecution. He will also no longer be eligible to be buried at the national cemetery alongside other former presidents.

Who runs the country now?  

Acting President and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo will continue to lead the country for the next 60 days or so until the early presidential election.

“I will do my best to manage the next presidential election so that the following government can be launched without a hitch in accordance with the Constitution, the law and the will of the sovereign people,” Han said on Friday.

Han himself was impeached by the parliament on Dec. 27, and reinstated only on March 24.

Yoon’s remaining administration officials will have to keep the country seamlessly running for the next two months until the next president takes office. But in reality, Korea has faced a leadership vacuum, including the lack of a defense chief and other key minister positions, for months now.

Senior presidential aides including chief of staff Chung Jin-suk, National Security Adviser Shin Won-sik and Sung Tae-yoon, director of national policy, tendered their resignations en masse to Han following Yoon’s impeachment verdict.

However, Han later Friday rejected the resignations to ensure there is no further vacuum in running the country.

The Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement that Han wanted to “ensure that there is no vacuum in state affairs in light of the current critical economic and security situations, and to ensure that urgent pending tasks can be carried out without a hitch.”

In turn, presidential office staffers are expected continue to perform their duties while supporting Han for the remaining two months until the early presidential election.
Seoul has been reeling from the hefty reciprocal tariff rate announced by the Trump administration, and while negotiations are urgent, the U.S. president has often favored top-down diplomacy meaning little might get done until the new Korean president is inaugurated.

Han also convened an emergency National Security Council (NSC) meeting at the Seoul government complex Friday afternoon, urging seamless security and a strong response posture against any provocations from North Korea amid the ongoing political turmoil.

Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said officials spoke by phone with the ambassadors of the United States, Japan and China to brief them on the Constitutional Court verdict and its impact.

First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hong-kyun spoke with Joseph Yun, acting U.S. ambassador, reconfirming the bilateral alliance. Deputy Foreign Minister Chung Byung-won spoke separately with Japanese Ambassador Koichi Mizushima and Chinese Ambassador Dai Bing.

Chae Jin-won, a professor of public governance at Kyung Hee University, advised political leaders, including acting President Han and chiefs of rival parties, to “make a gentlemen’s agreement to govern the country in an orderly fashion.”

He also recommended political leaders “to run a public campaign to advise the public to accept the verdict and get people to refrain from disseminating overly political messages.”

Chae further called to resolve fundamental issues through “revising the Constitution to ensure problems such as martial law imposition would not recur in future.”

What challenges await the next president?

While the long wait for a verdict is over, Korea’s next leader will be tasked with unifying a country more divided than ever as political polarization lends way to more vocal extremists.

Yoon, who was plagued by low approval ratings throughout his controversy-ridden presidency, has had a steady hard-liner following who has stood by him through high and low, favoring his policies prioritizing relations with the United States and coming down hard on North Korea.

The conservative PPP faces an existential crisis with the ouster of Yoon, a political outsider who has beat out political heavyweights to become its presidential candidate in 2021 and winning in a razor-thin margin against DP’s contender Lee Jae-myung. Even under Yoon’s helm, the PPP suffered from factional feuds between his supporters and those outside of his inner circle.

While the PPP publicly said it accepts the Constitutional Court’s verdict on Friday, internally, party members have been venting their frustrations and worries in closed-door meetings, with pro-Yoon lawmakers calling to come down on others who supported the president’s impeachment.

Lee Jae-mook, a politics professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, said the impeachment decision is a “huge political blow to the conservatives,” noting “hard-liners have especially been showing strong resistance, considering this marks the second impeachment of a conservative president.”

He added, “But the PPP is unlikely to dismantle, and they could rather unite based on a sense of crisis.” Lee pointed out that regardless, considering the recent results of the April 2 by-elections which resulted in an overall victory for liberal candidates, the PPP is not likely to have a big chance of winning in the presidential election.

However, the DP also can’t let down its guard, as its frontrunner, Lee Jae-myung, is also plagued by legal risks and has been a divisive figure within his own party.

Lee Jun-han, a politics professor of Incheon National University, said that the DP nonetheless “will swiftly prepare for the election in a Lee Jae-myung-centric system as they carry out their primaries and the presidential race.”

Last year’s general election demonstrated such a trend, Cho said, noting “those who were not aligned to DP leader Lee and those who were not close to impeached President Yoon were relatively disadvantaged in nomination processes.”

Cho noted that “such factional politics is unprecedented” and warned that internal strife within the PPP is likely to intensify, while the DP will now have to “show a leadership that refrains from engaging in political divide.”

Rhee Jong-hoon, a political commentator, also said that politicians, instead of taking the steps for national unity, have “further encouraged and incited” extremists, noting that even in an early presidential election, the rival parties will continue to “clash.”

“To address the root cause of the political divide, the next administration must resolve the conflict between factions and achieve national unity in order to restore Korean democracy and demonstrate new leadership which is not swayed by hard-liners,” Cho said.