SEOUL, South Korea
South Korea was thrown into unexpected turmoil after President Yoon Suk Yeol's abrupt declaration of emergency martial law late Tuesday evening prompted the main opposition to push for his immediate impeachment and the ruling party to mull cutting off ties with the embattled leader.
Despite Yoon having backed down earlier than expected, the damage of the six-hour chaos was done. Videos of martial law troops breaking and entering the National Assembly, a symbol of democracy here, while carrying guns as the parliamentary aides fought back by spraying fire extinguishers, sent shock waves through the nation.
The opposition says impeaching Yoon is now a must.
The Democratic Party of Korea and five other opposition parties on Wednesday afternoon submitted a bill to impeach the president with the aim of having it passed between Friday and Saturday.
The main opposition plans to table the bill at the plenary session scheduled around midnight.
The main opposition also proposed an impeachment bill for Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun. Impeachment bills need to be put to vote within 72 hours of their submission to the plenary meeting. The defense minister said he has offered to resign.
Kim said all members of the country’s armed forces who were mobilized while the martial law was in effect were acting under his direction, and that he alone was solely responsible for all that happened.
Kim apologized to the South Korean people for the chaos and confusion caused by the martial law.
In a joint statement, the parties said the president has “opened the door to his impeachment himself with the martial law fiasco he pulled.”
The calls for impeaching Yoon are seeing a new momentum outside the Assembly.
The Democratic Party was joined by a large crowd of supporters as they rallied on the steps of the Assembly main building at around noon Wednesday, calling on Yoon to step down.
They held signs and chanted slogans like “Impeach Yoon” and “Time to let him go” for about an hour in the chilly December cold.
Main opposition leader Lee Jae-myung said that Yoon is the kind of a leader that "could launch a limited war (on the Korean Peninsula) if he deems emergency martial law involving armed forces as ineffective," during the rally.
He raised the possibility of Yoon declaring martial law for a second time, which could provoke North Korea.
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