SEOUL (AP) — Dancing and consoling hugs. Wild whoops and anguished screams. Tears, both of joy and rage. Reaction to the court verdict ousting South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol from office Friday was a vivid window into the nation's deep political divisions, as tens of thousands of Yoon opponents and supporters aired their feelings in downtown Seoul.
As South Korea now turns to elect a new president, that divide is only likely to harden. It will be particularly on display as both sides try to answer one question about the , when the decreed martial law, setting himself on the and the loss of the presidency:
What was he thinking?
Yoon was confronting North Korea-sympathizing politicians intent on destroying South Korea's democracy, his supporters say. No, no, liberals maintain: He was trying to deflect attention from corruption investigations of him and his wife. Or maybe he was in the sway of who claim liberals have subverted the election process?
This national attempt to pick through the wreckage of Yoon's decision to send heavily armed soldiers to encircle the ºÃÉ«tv Assembly will be front and center as a violently fractured South Korea begins a fierce campaign to elect a new president within two months.
Deploying troops to the streets of any democracy is serious. But it is especially sensitive in South Korea, where memories of military rule from the 1960s to 1980s are fresh.
And the move has further exposed the country's fault lines, along politics, national security, social standing, economics, gender and age.
Division is intrinsic to South Korea’s origin story. The Korean Peninsula was split into northern and southern halves in 1945 by Soviet and U.S. troops, formally broken up in 1948 when both Koreas became independent countries, and then militarily separated at the Demilitarized Zone at the end of the Korean War in 1953.
The fractures will likely get worse as presidential election campaigning gains force.
Yoon supporters say he was thwarted by the opposition
Yoon's supporters tend to frame the martial law decree as a crucial tool for a president stymied at every turn by the liberal opposition Democratic Party, which controls parliament.
Kim Min-seon, a Yoon supporter, said it was the only way to deal with liberals blocking Yoon's efforts to fight Pyongyang's and Beijing’s alleged campaigns to threaten South Korea’s democracy through cyberattacks, disinformation and technology theft. The Democratic Party has denied these accusations.
“I strongly condemn Lee Jae-myung’s Democratic Party, which is an axis of evil,†Kim said during a recent rally. Lee, the opposition leader, is Yoon's archrival and seen as the presidential front-runner.
Yoon supporters' fears are further fueled by false claims about election fraud.
On Dec. 3, Yoon sent troops to ºÃÉ«tv Election Commission offices to investigate alleged vulnerabilities to its computer systems that he insisted could affect the credibility of election results.
Such claims are unsubstantiated and there is no evidence of electoral fraud, but there's a worry that the specter could undermine confidence in future elections.
“It’s undeniable that we had election fraud, and the president made a crucial decision to expose such massive wrongdoing,†Kwon Kyung-hee, another Yoon supporter, said during a rally this week.
Yoon critics say he was influenced by conspiracy theories
Many Yoon critics see something strikingly different: a leader increasingly that portray him as a victim of a North Korea-sympathizing opposition.
Instead, they say, he was merely an inept politician, unable to work with rivals to get things done.
“The president’s imposition of martial law was a terrible political decision made by a foolish former prosecutor who mistook compromise for surrender and dialogue for interrogation,†said Choi Hyun-seok, a Seoul office worker.
But others see a reason closer to home, accusing Yoon of being desperate to protect himself from corruption investigations.
Park Chan-dae, floor leader of the Democratic Party, said Yoon’s martial law decree was likely an attempt to cover up “disgraceful†allegations about Yoon and his wife that had caused the president's approval ratings to plummet.
The scandal revolves around allegations that Yoon and first lady Kim Keon Hee unlawfully influenced the conservative People Power Party to select a specific candidate for a parliamentary by-election in 2022 at the request of election broker Myung Tae-kyun. Yoon by him or his wife.
Park noted that it was Dec. 2 when Myung, facing the threat of criminal prosecution and increasing scrutiny, revealed he would hand over a phone that contains communications with Yoon and Kim.
“Prosecutors indicted Myung Tae-kyun a day later, and Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law on the same day,†Park said during a January party meeting. “Isn’t this too coincidental to be dismissed as mere chance?â€
It’s not immediately clear how much of a role the Myung scandal played in influencing Yoon’s decree, which investigators say had been brewing for months.
Prosecutors’ indictments, instead, say Yoon was driven to martial law by disputes with the opposition over budget cuts, impeachment attempts against his allies, and baseless election fraud conspiracy theories. Though they did also briefly mention that Yoon discussed the scandal with his defense minister.
Both Yoon's party — which is in disarray following the court ruling — and the opposition — whose leader also faces several corruption investigations — have big challenges ahead.
And the stakes couldn't be higher for South Korea: How the political standoff plays out will determine its democratic future, but also its relations with the nuclear-armed North, a newly protectionist United States, and its major trading partner but uneasy neighbor China.
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Associated Press correspondent Hyung-jin Kim contributed to this story.
