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President Yoon Suk-yeol heads to the podium to give an address at an event for small business owners held in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, on Oct. 31, 2024. (pool photo)

By Hwang Joon-bum, editorial writer

Korea has reached the point where it’s no longer awkward to talk about impeaching the president or curtailing his term in office. In a recently released telephone recording, President Yoon Suk-yeol tells Myung Tae-kyun that said to the party’s nomination committee, “Since Kim Young-sun campaigned hard [for me], why don’t you do that [nominate] for her?” That has provoked much speculation about whether Yoon will soon be facing impeachment.

The opposition Rebuilding Korea Party has taken the lead in pledging to bring impeachment into public discourse. Cho Kuk, the head of the party, mentioned that over 3,000 people had attended a rally in Seoul’s Seocho neighborhood on Oct. 26 calling for Yoon’s impeachment.

“There’s a saying that when a single leaf falls from the paulownia tree, you know that fall has arrived. Well, I think we’ve just seen that paulownia leaf falling to the ground,” Cho said, referring to the impeachment rally.

The ruling People Power Party (PPP) has also been talking more frequently about impeachment, though in a somewhat different context.

“When you look at how things are going right now, it’s the same as when the wheels started turning on former President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment in 2016. I’m feeling some déjà vu here,” said Yoon Sang-hyun, a PPP lawmaker, during a forum on the topic of “conservative innovation and integration” on Wednesday.

Eight years ago, the PPP — then known as the Saenuri Party — failed to block Park’s impeachment because it was split into pro-Park and anti-Park factions. Since the current fractures in the PPP could pave the way for another impeachment, the lawmaker argued, Yoon Suk-yeol and PPP leader Han Dong-hoon need to make amends.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of political veterans and pundits are suggesting that the Constitution should be amended to shorten Yoon’s term in office.

The fact is that there are some striking similarities between the current situation and the months leading up to Park’s impeachment.

Rhee Cheol-hui, a former Blue House senior secretary for presidential affairs, wrote that a rupture within the ruling party is one of the main factors behind impeachment. That’s part of an academic paper called “A Study on the Determinants of Presidential Impeachment” comparing the impeachments of former Presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Park Geun-hye.

The ruling party today faces an irreconcilable rupture between Yoon and Han, with party members locked in a chilly standoff between the pro-Yoon and pro-Han factions.

Also echoing the situation eight years ago is Korea’s divided government. The ruling party holds barely a third of the seats in the National Assembly following a shellacking in the general election earlier this year.

In such a situation, it’s particularly important for the president to exert leadership. But Yoon, just like Park before him, has adopted an adversarial and antagonistic posture toward the opposition-controlled National Assembly. That makes him even more vulnerable to a motion of impeachment.

In regard to personal popularity, Yoon has many more detractors than supporters.

A scandal is another crucial impetus for launching impeachment proceedings. Sure enough, a new scandal is emerging in the form of fresh allegations that first lady Kim Keon-hee meddled in PPP nominations in the general election with the help of former pollster Myung Tae-kyun.

But there are still significant differences between past and present. Eight years ago, the motion of impeachment was passed and the trial began after the prosecution service’s investigation into Park’s dubious relationship with Choi Soon-sil uncovered criminal behavior by the president.

Today, however, the prosecution service and other law enforcement bodies are committed to covering for Yoon and his wife, and thus far, nothing has turned up in their investigations. In addition, public anger has yet to explode in the form of large-scale candlelit rallies as it did eight years ago.

Another issue is that the ruling party is very unlikely, at least for now, to join another impeachment drive given vivid memories of how the conservatives were wiped out after the impeachment and lost the next presidential election.

All these counterexamples carry the caveat of “not yet,” and it’s hard to predict how events will unfold.

But Nov. 10 is the midpoint of Yoon’s presidency. Does he really intend to spend his remaining two and a half years in office amid routine chatter about when he may be impeached or his term curtailed?

With his presidential authority and credibility in the gutter, what is Yoon capable of doing? Unless Yoon changes his behavior, there are only three possible outcomes: 1) becoming a premature lame duck, 2) stepping down or 3) being impeached.

If Yoon manages to ride out this crisis by patching things up and playing for time, he will obviously become a premature lame duck. His four major reform pledges (medical services, pension, labor and education) already sound hollow, and his comments about foreign policy and national security emergencies inspire no confidence whatsoever.

It’s frightful to contemplate two and a half years of constant stress from a president who has become a laughingstock and lost all momentum for governance.

If Yoon’s lame duck existence exhausts the public’s patience, he may find himself pressured to step down before his term is even over. His refusal to step down could trigger the public outrage that would set him on the path to impeachment.

Whether Yoon becomes a lame duck halfway through his presidency, has to step down, or ends up getting impeached, all three scenarios are tragedies for Korea.

Yoon does have one other obvious option. He could carry out a sweeping reform of his administration and tackle the issues surrounding the first lady. When it comes to the first lady, he ought to take measures so rigorous that they might strike the public as extreme. That would mean not only having his wife make a public apology, but also actively cooperating with an investigation into the allegations raised against her. If Kim Keon-hee didn’t do anything wrong, what reason does Yoon have to oppose appointing a special counsel?

It’s time for Yoon to sweep out the sycophants among his officials and aides who have allowed his administration to be plunged into such a crisis.

Two and a half years is too long to ride things out, but it’s still not too late to make a fresh start.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]