South Korea’s Pres­i­dent Lifts ‘Emer­gency Mar­tial Law’ Decree

South Kore­an Pres­i­dent Yoon Suk Yeol said ear­ly Wednes­day morn­ing local time that he has lift­ed the “emer­gency mar­tial law” decree that he signed into effect just six hours ear­li­er.

“I declared emer­gency mar­tial law at 11 p.m. last night as an act of nation­al resolve against the anti-state forces that are try­ing to par­a­lyze the essen­tial func­tions of the state and dis­rupt the con­sti­tu­tion­al order of our lib­er­al democ­ra­cy,” he said in a state­ment.

“How­ev­er, a short time ago, the Nation­al Assem­bly demand­ed that mar­tial law be lift­ed, so I with­drew the mil­i­tary forces that had been deployed to car­ry out mar­tial law,” he con­tin­ued, “I will lift mar­tial law as soon as we have a quo­rum in the cab­i­net. It’s ear­ly in the morn­ing, so we don’t have a quo­rum yet.”

Yoon’s deci­sion to end the mar­tial came after 190 mem­bers of South Korea’s 300 Nation­al Assem­bly mem­bers quick­ly gath­ered for an emer­gency ses­sion in which all 190 vot­ed to block the move.

He called on the Nation­al Assem­bly to “imme­di­ate­ly stop the out­ra­geous behav­ior that is par­a­lyz­ing the func­tion­ing of the coun­try with impeach­ments, leg­isla­tive manip­u­la­tion and bud­get manip­u­la­tion.”

The decree from Yoon, who has seen his approval rat­ings plum­met in recent months, comes after the coun­try end­ed its mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship in the 1980s.

The New York Times not­ed that the con­ser­v­a­tive pres­i­dent won his elec­tion by cam­paign­ing on being tougher toward North Korea and call­ing for strength­en­ing the country’s alliance with the U.S.

Yoon declared mar­tial law in an attempt to bring an end to the paral­y­sis in oper­at­ing the gov­ern­ment that was caused by the Nation­al Assem­bly being won by the oppos­ing par­ty, the country’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, ear­li­er this year.

In his speech announc­ing the mar­tial law, Yoon said that the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion inside the coun­try had par­a­lyzed the government’s abil­i­ty to oper­ate by ini­ti­at­ing 22 impeach­ment pro­ceed­ings against gov­ern­ment offi­cials over the last six months in addi­tion to near­ly a dozen more that were planned.

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“This is a sit­u­a­tion that is not only unprece­dent­ed in any coun­try in the world, but has nev­er been seen since the found­ing of our coun­try,” he said late on Tues­day night local time. “It is par­a­lyz­ing the judi­cia­ry by intim­i­dat­ing judges and impeach­ing a num­ber of pros­e­cu­tors, and it is par­a­lyz­ing the exec­u­tive branch by try­ing to impeach the Min­is­ter of the Inte­ri­or, the Chair­man of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion, the Chair of the Board of Audit, and the Defense Min­is­ter.”

He said that the country’s secu­ri­ty was being weak­ened by mem­bers of the Nation­al Assem­bly who had “under­mined the essen­tial func­tions of the state” by cut­ting key mea­sures from the country’s nation­al bud­get.

He added that the country’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty had a “leg­isla­tive dic­ta­tor­ship” that it was using “as a means of polit­i­cal strug­gle.”

He said the Nation­al Assem­bly had turned into a “den of crim­i­nals” that was com­mit­ting “obvi­ous anti-state act[s]” and plot­ting “insur­rec­tion.”

Yoon said mar­tial law was need­ed “to defend the free Repub­lic of Korea from the threats of North Kore­an com­mu­nist forces and to erad­i­cate the shame­less pro-North Kore­an anti-state forces that are plun­der­ing the free­dom and hap­pi­ness of our peo­ple and to pro­tect the free con­sti­tu­tion­al order.”

CNN said that the South Kore­an pub­lic was upset over the way Yoon han­dled a tragedy after he was elect­ed when more than 150 peo­ple were crushed to death at a Hal­loween par­ty.

The report said there was also a con­tro­ver­sy involv­ing a design­er hand­bag that his wife, Kim Keon See, was accused of accept­ing val­ued at more than the $750 lim­it.

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