ANALYSIS Why Park Geun-hye was impeached, but Yoon Suk Yeol isn't

Former President Park Geun-hye, left, and incumbent President Yoon Suk Yeol / Korea Times file, courtesy of presidential office

Public uproar toward President Yoon Suk Yeol’s sudden and inappropriate martial law was as high as that toward former President Park Geun-hye’s massive corruption scandal in 2016.

However, the result of the impeachment vote turned out to be quite different — Park was impeached with a majority of the then-ruling party supporting it, while Yoon avoided impeachment with his ruling party boycotting it to nullify the vote.

What made the difference was the ruling bloc’s fear of “annihilation," which took place after Park's ouster, and foreseeable power seizure by the opposition in the next snap election if Yoon was impeached.

Right after Park was impeached in December 2016, the then-ruling conservative Saenuri Party lost ground and virtually collapsed as people lost all trust in the conservatives.

The impeachment divided the conservatives. The anti-Park faction, which actively backed impeachment, broke away from the party and established the splinter Bareun Party, and the remaining Saenuri members renamed it the Liberty Korea Party.

Both the Bareun Party and the Liberty Korea Party had single-digit approval ratings around the snap election in May 2017, held to elect Park’s successor.

Then-opposition liberal Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) candidate Moon Jae-in took the helm of the government.

The two conservative parties later merged to form the current ruling People Power Party (PPP).

The conservatives struggled to regain public support until the April 2020 general elections, where the conservative bloc still secured only about one-third of the 300 seats in the National Assembly.

In addition to the defeats in the presidential and general elections, many conservative politicians, labelled as “aides to Park,” were investigated for their involvement in the corruption scandal or forced to retire, as they failed to get candidacy in general and local elections, lost elections even when they managed to get candidacy and were removed from government posts.

This is one reason Yoon included some conservative old guards from the Lee Myung-bak administration, Park’s predecessor, in his government, as those associated with the Park administration had been forced out of the political scene.

PPP members have also been worried that if the impeachment motion is passed and upheld by the Constitutional Court, the conservatives will face a certain defeat in the snap election, which must occur within 60 days of a president’s removal.

This potentially will pave the way for the opposition's strongest contender, DPK leader Rep. Lee Jae-myung, to become Korea's next president.

In the case of Yoon's removal, the likelihood of incumbent PPP lawmakers failing to secure parliamentary seats in the next general election also increases, another reason many PPP lawmakers opposed the impeachment.

Rep. Kim Gi-hyeon of the PPP, known as a pro-Yoon lawmaker, wrote on Facebook Friday, “At the time of Park’s impeachment, we experienced confusion, national division and consequent damage to national power. If we again impeach a president whom we selected, we’ll never be able to ask the people to elect us (conservatives) next time.”