Seoul: Senior aides of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, including his chief of staff and senior secretaries, offered to resign on Wednesday after he declared and lifted an emergency martial law, sources in the presidential office said, according to media reports.
Yonhap News Agency reported that opposition parties were set to submit a motion on Yoon’s impeachment to National Assembly (parliament). The motion will be put to vote this week itself.
About six hours after clamping martial law late on Tuesday night, Yoon reversed the decision around 4-30 a.m. local time on Wednesday, forced by the National Assembly which voted for its withdrawal.
They aides who wanted to quit included Chung Jin-suk, the presidential chief of staff, National Security Adviser Shin Won-sik and Sung Tae-yoon, chief of staff for policy.
Yoon had made the surprise emergency declaration through a television address around 11 p.m. on Tuesday, plunging the East Asian country into turmoil.
The decision came after the opposition Democratic Party railroaded a downsized budget bill in the parliamentary budget committee, and submitted impeachment motions against a state auditor and the chief prosecutor, Yonhap News Agency (YNA) reported.
However, both the ruling People Power Party and the opposition confronted the president on his announcement.
While People Power Party chief Han Dong-hoon called the President’s declaration of martial law as “wrong”, the opposition Democratic Party dubbed the announcement as “unconstitutional, anti-public.”
Some hours after Yoon’s announcement, lawmakers voted to block the president’s move, after both the ruling party and opposition vowed to obstruct the declaration, despite the troops moving into the parliament building while some military vehicles were parked outside, BBC reported.
Of the 300 members of parliament, 190 were present and all 190 voted in favour of the motion demanding the lifting of martial law.
With the motion’s passage, the martial law declaration was void, as under the Constitution, martial law must be lifted when a parliamentary majority demands it.
Yoon, in his television address, had accused the nation’s opposition of “paralysing” the government with “anti-state” activities cy.
However, as he withdrew martial law, Yoon said he had enforced it “with my resolute intent to save the nation in the face of anti-state forces that attempt to paralyze the nation’s essential function”.
“But there was a demand from the National Assembly for the lifting of martial law, (I) have withdrawn troops mobilized to execute martial law affairs,” he said, according to YNA.
Yoon reiterated his calls for the National Assembly to stop “outrageous” activities that he said paralyse national functions, including impeachment attempts against government officials.
