South Korea: President Yoon Suk Yeol faces police investigation for insurrection

The political crisis in South Korea is not over. It emerged Thursday that the South Korean Police Investigation Bureau officially opened an investigation against the president for "insurrection." As officials stated, the case is open.

Meanwhile, Yoon Suk Yeol is maneuvering to stay in power and dodge the impeachment that the opposition wants to open against him. All this has happened after the president, for the first time since the democracy began in the 1980s in South Korea, declared martial law last Tuesday.

He did so, he claims, to deal with the opposition blocking the government in the National Assembly and thus causing vulnerability to the North Korean communists. After martial law was revoked, Yoon was forced to remove the troops and extinguish the state of emergency.

Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun resigned after Tuesday's debacle. Kim played a relevant role by occupying a key responsibility in the deployment of the military who took positions around the National Assembly and even the interior of the chamber, with the alleged intention of preventing any vote from being held inside the legislative body.

The South Korean police are investigating these facts to potentially bring in the president on charges of insurrection. The president's own party, People Power, has asked Yoon to leave the party, calling his declaration of martial law "unconstitutional."

It is in addition to the impeachment invoked by the opposition on Wednesday. The vote on said process is scheduled for Saturday. With a majority in the Assembly, the opposition needs at least eight legislators plus the ruling People's Power Party (PPP) to reach the two-thirds minimum to pass the initiative.

However, PPP leader Han Dong-hoon said he would "work to prevent the impeachment motion from passing."

"All 108 deputies of the People's Power Party will stand united to reject the impeachment of the president," PPP parliamentary leader Choo Kyung-ho delved.

Should the initiative pass, the president would be suspended and replaced by the prime minister pending a verdict by the Constitutional Court within 180 days. If the judges give the green light, a presidential election would be called in a maximum of 60 days.

The complaint against Yoon filed by the Democratic Party and the opposition leader also targets some of his ministers and senior military and police commanders.

"This is an unforgivable crime, one that cannot, should not and will not be excused," said legislator Kim Seung-won.

After hours of confusion and unrest, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan hailed South Korea's "strong and resilient" democracy and recalled "the importance of maintaining it."

The United States has 28,500 troops in this country, a key ally of Washington in Asia since the war (1950-1953) that divided the Korean peninsula between the communist north and capitalist south.

Technically, the two Koreas have remained at war since that conflict, which ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, and already strained relations between the two degraded significantly under Yoon.