South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday, December 3, declared emergency martial law, accusing the opposition of being "anti-state forces intent on overthrowing the regime" amid parliamentary wrangling over a budget bill.
"To safeguard a liberal South Korea from the threats posed by North Korea's communist forces and to eliminate anti-state elements plundering people's freedom and happiness, I hereby declare emergency martial law," Yoon said in a live televised address to the nation. "With no regard for the livelihoods of the people, the opposition party has paralyzed governance solely for the sake of impeachments, special investigations, and shielding their leader from justice," he added.
Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung denounced the newly imposed martial law as "illegal" and called on the public to gather at the parliament in protest. "President Yoon Suk Yeol's illegal imposition of martial law is invalid," said Lee, who narrowly lost to Yoon in the 2022 election, during a live stream. "Please come to the National Assembly now. I am heading there as well," he added, urging citizens to join him in opposing the martial law.
The surprise move comes as Yoon's People Power Party and the main opposition Democratic Party continue to bicker over next year's budget bill. Opposition MPs last week approved a significantly downsized budget plan through a parliamentary committee.
The opposition has slashed approximately 4.1 trillion won ($2.8 billion) from Yoon's proposed 677 trillion won budget plan, cutting the government's reserve fund and activity budgets for Yoon's office, the prosecution, police and the state audit agency. "Our National Assembly has become a haven for criminals, a den of legislative dictatorship that seeks to paralyze the judicial and administrative systems and overturn our liberal democratic order," Yoon said.
The White House said it was "closely" monitoring the situation. "The Administration is in contact with the ROK government and is monitoring the situation closely," a spokesman for the National Security Council said, using the official acronym for the Republic of Korea, where thousands of US troops are based.
Yoon, a former prosecutor, accused opposition lawmakers of cutting "all key budgets essential to the nation's core functions, such as combatting drug crimes and maintaining public security... turning the country into a drug haven and a state of public safety chaos." The president went on to label the opposition, which holds a majority in the 300-member parliament, as "anti-state forces intent on overthrowing the regime."
Yoon, a former prosecutor, accused opposition lawmakers of martial law as "inevitable to guarantee the continuity of a liberal South Korea," adding that it would not impact the country's foreign policy. "I will restore the country to normalcy by getting rid of anti-state forces as soon as possible," he said, without elaborating further other than the martial law in place. He described the current situation as South Korea "on the verge of collapse, with the National Assembly acting as a monster intent on bringing down liberal democracy."
With martial law imposed, all military units in the South, which remains technically at war with the nuclear-armed North, have been ordered to strengthen their emergency alert and readiness postures, Yonhap news agency reported.
The entrance to the National Assembly has been sealed, and MPs have been barred from entering the building, according to Yonhap. The imposition of emergency martial law comes as Yoon's approval rating dropped to 19% in the latest Gallup poll last week, with many expressing dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and controversies involving his wife, Kim Keon Hee.