Tens of thousands of protesters from both sides are massing in the streets of Seoul airing demands.
President Yoon Suk-yeol of South Korea greets his supporters as he leaves a detention center at Uiwang, March 8, 2025. Kim Do-hun/Yonhap via AP
SEOUL — It will be showdown time this week beginning with the constitutional court ruling Monday on the impeachment of South Korea’s acting president, the soft-spoken economist and diplomat who was catapulted briefly to the top after the impeachment of the conservative president, Yoon Suk-yeol.
Tens of thousands of protesters from right to left are massing on central Seoul’s broad avenues demanding that the court reject or accept the impeachment motion voted by the leftist-dominated National Assembly in December against Mr. Yoon’s martial law decree that he was forced to rescind six hours after issuing it.
However the court rules on the impeachment of the acting president, Han Duck-soo, the protests will reach a crescendo all week. More than 10,000 policemen are guarding downtown streets, rerouting buses, and blocking wild-eyed demonstrators from colliding in violence as threatened by hotheads on both sides.
The imminent ruling on Mr. Han should provide a clue to the court’s mood and thinking while the nation awaits the fate of Mr. Yoon with bated breath. Many observers predict the outcome of its protracted deliberations by Friday, but the country has been expecting a ruling for weeks – and may have to keep waiting until April while protests swell in noise and numbers.
While waiting to rule on Mr. Yoon, however, the court has already said it’s ready to disclose its decision on the motion to impeach Mr. Han, who filled in as acting president for 13 days after the president’s impeachment had left him with the title but stripped him of authority.
As prime minister, Mr. Han, who earned a doctorate in economics from Harvard and served as ambassador to Washington between 2009 and 2012, automatically became acting president after having served once before as prime minister under a liberal president, Roh Moo-hyun, and as an economics minister who helped craft the historic Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement known as KORUS.
As shocked as he was to find himself the acting president, Mr. Han was surprised again when he was impeached after 13 days on the job for vetoing bills passed by the leftist-dominated assembly. Vetoed bills include one for investigating Mr. Yoon and his wife for corruption. He was also accused of failing to fill three vacancies on the nine-member constitutional court with leftists.
While rightists filled the avenue through central Seoul listening to speakers blaring slogans and patriotic songs from a huge sound truck, thousands of leftists marched down an intersecting avenue leading to the constitutional court. Groups on both sides shouted outside the barricaded entrance to the court .
With six votes needed to approve Mr. Yoon’s impeachment, ousting him from office and forcing a “snap election” for a new president in 60 days, leftists promised to introduce another motion in the assembly for impeaching the acting president, Choi Sang-mok, who as finance minister had succeeded Mr. Han in that role. He did fill two of the three vacancies on the court, but displeased the left by failing to put a ninth judge in the remaining seat.