South Korea’s National Assembly Passes Impeachment Motion Against Yoon – The World

South Korea’s National Assembly passed a motion to impeach President Yoon Suk-yeol on Saturday amid growing calls for Yoon to step down over his martial law decree.

At the plenary meeting, the bill was approved by 204-85 votes with three abstentions, Yonhap news agency reports.

Although most lawmakers from the ruling party boycotted the first impeachment vote on December 7, all 300 lawmakers voted in favor of the second motion.

Acceptance of the impeachment motion is a decision taken in accordance with the pledge to uphold the Constitution that was solemnly sworn as representatives of the people, National Assembly Speaker Woo Won Shik said after the results were announced.

“The National Assembly and the government will work together to restore the stability of people’s livelihoods while ensuring that worries and concerns in the economy, foreign affairs, security and other issues will not continue to grow,” Wu said.

Calls for Yoon’s resignation are mounting after he shocked the nation by declaring martial law on the night of Dec. 3. The declaration was revoked by the National Assembly after about two hours.

The first impeachment vote was canceled on December 7 after most ruling party lawmakers boycotted the vote.

Park Chang-dae, leader of Korea’s main opposition Democratic Party, said the vote was “a victory for the people and democracy.”

After the impeachment decision, the Constitutional Court has 180 days to decide whether the submission is valid.

In a previous case, the court took 63 days and 91 days to rule on the impeachment cases of former presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Park Geun-hye in 2004 and 2017, respectively.

If the court decides to impeach Yun, the presidential election will be held within 60 days.

Nationwide rallies took place on Saturday as tens of thousands of people took to the streets to demand Yun’s impeachment.