South Korea has a long history of martial law

Yesterday afternoon South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol made the shock TV announcement that he was putting his country under martial law. According to Article 77 of South Korea’s constitution, the People’ Power party President was within his rights. But why?

Yoon wheeled out the standard coup trope that he needed ‘to restore order’. He argued that South Korea needed to be rescued from South Korea’s left wing Democrat party which won a majority in the unicameral National Assembly in April. Yoon accused of the Democrats of putting the country at risk from communist North Korea. But his problem was the absence of an emergency. Without that Yoon’s declaration of martial law could only be seen as a ham-fisted coup d’etat. 

The popular reaction was immediate. Members of the National Assembly raced to the parliament in Yeongdeungpo-gu. Some 190 of them got there before the army. Some even climbed walls and fought police to get inside.