South Korean president's shocking 6-hour power grab ends in total failure
A brief martial-law declaration by South Koreaʼs leader turned into a massive political disaster. His attempt to seize control lasted just 6 hours before parliament stepped in to stop it
Earlier this month President Yoon Suk-yeol tried something that South Korea hadnt seen since the 80s: he declared martial-law in a desperate move to keep power (his popularity was at rock-bottom)
The whole thing went down like this: on Dec 3rd Yoon made his big move but parliament wasnt having it; they shut him down in just 6 hours. Now hes looking at some serious trouble — impeachment and treason charges are on the table
The history here is pretty wild: South Korea spent about 26 years under military control from the 60s to 87. Back then Park Chung-hee ran things after his take-over‚ filling top spots with his military buddies from the Korea Military Academy. After Parks death Chun Doo-hwan grabbed power and things got real messy in Gwangju where lots of people died
We were outnumbered by the enemy
The whole thing shows how the military still has its fingers in everything: most defense ministers are ex-army guys‚ and they all went to the same school. Kim Yong-hyun (the defense minister) even tried to get troops to stop parliament — but young soldiers werent too excited about following those orders
- Ex-military people running civilian jobs
- Most leaders come from same military school
- Strong ties to right-wing politics
- Young soldiers refused to follow some orders
This mess-up shows South Korea needs to fix some things: maybe wait before letting military folks take civilian jobs and mix up who gets to be in charge. Its pretty clear they need to teach their military more about how democracy works
