Three Presidents in One Month in South Korea - What's Next?

• The acting South Korean President Han Duck-Soo was impeached by the South Korea's Parliament on 27 December. Choi Sang-Mok (finance minister) is now the new, acting President of South Korea.

• There could be multiple impeachments of acting Presidents in the next several weeks which would be unprecedented and raise further concerns about the lack of political stability in South Korea.

• Amid all this political uncertainty, Yoon Suk-Yeol's approval rating has been improving sharply to more than 30%.

The acting South Korean President Han Duck-Soo was impeached by the South Korea's Parliament on 27 December.Choi Sang-Mok (finance minister) is now the new, acting President of South Korea. In other words, there has been three Presidents in South Korea in the past one month. The main reason why Han Duck-Soo was impeached was due to his refusal to approve the three seats on the South Korea's Constitutional Court which would increase the number of justices from six to nine.

Han Duck-Soo stated that he was willing to approve new justice members on the Constitutional Court but they need to be approved by both the Democratic Party and the People's Party of Korea (reach a bipartisan agreement). Amid all this political chaos, KRW has depreciated 5.3% versus USD since end of November (currently 1,474 KRW = USD 1).

Of the 300 members in the South Korean Parliament, 192 of them voted to impeach acting President Han Duck-Soo. Nearly all of the members of the People's Party abstained from voting. People's Party argued that because Han Duck-Soo is the acting President, at least 200 members should vote in favor of impeachment for Han to be impeached.

However, the Democratic Party argued that although Han Duck-Soo is the acting President, he is also the Prime Minister and because of this only 151 votes are needed to impeach him. Despite this disagreement, the Democratic Party decided to ram through the impeachment of the acting President Han Duck-Soo and he has agreed to resign from his position.

Six or Nine Justices on the Constitutional Court?

One of the key issues is whether there should be six or nine justices on the Constitutional Court. According to the South Korean constitution, six members of the Constitutional Court need to approve the impeachment of President Yoon Suk-Yeol. Of the current six justices on the Constitutional Court, one of them (Jung Hyung-Sik) is a clear conservative and appointed by President Yoon and he is unlikely to impeach Yoon Suk-Yeol.

So even if just one justice member (out of six) decide not to impeach President Yoon, then he will not be impeached.