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\nDecades of achievement led Yoon Suk Yeol to the pinnacle of political power in South Korea, but his legacy may now rest on a single, baffling decision to send out troops under martial law over vague claims that one of Asia\u2019s leading democracies was under threat.
Was there any clue in Yoon\u2019s background that this was coming?
Yoon, a staunch conservative and longtime prosecutor, went from political novice to president of South Korea in 2022, ending five years of liberal rule that saw failed efforts to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis and a slackening economy.
But his time in office has been marked by near-constant friction with an opposition-controlled parliament, threats of annihilation from North Korea and a series of scandals involving him and his wife. Observers say he has long taken criticism personally and relies on the advice of hardcore loyalists, and that he makes impulsive decisions.
READ: What we know about South Korea\u2019s martial law
As he faces impeachment by parliament, no one thing explains his attempt to shut down the mechanisms of a democratic nation over his still-unexplained claim that \u201canti-state forces\u201d were acting under the influence of North Korea.
But there are strands in Yoon\u2019s background, and especially in the intense acrimony with the liberal opposition and his hardline standoff with North Korea, that help illuminate what could turn out to be the defining moment of his presidency.
A turbulent rise to top prosecutor
Despite his 2 1\/2 years as president, Yoon\u2019s career has been overwhelmingly about the law, not politics.
Yoon, 63, was born in Seoul to two professors, and went to prestigious Seoul National University, where he studied law.
A major moment, according to Yoon, happened in 1980 when he played the role of a judge in a mock trial of then-dictator Chun Doo-hwan, who had staged a military coup the previous year, and sentenced him to life imprisonment. In the aftermath, Yoon had to flee to the countryside as Chun\u2019s military extended martial law and placed troops and armored vehicles at the university.
Yoon returned to the capital and eventually began a career as a state prosecutor that would last nearly three decades, building an image as strong-minded and uncompromising.
But he has also faced criticism that his personality was unsuited to high-level leadership.
\u201cPresident Yoon isn\u2019t well-prepared, and he does things off the cuff,\u201d Choi Jin, director of the Seoul-based Institute of Presidential Leadership, said. \u201cHe also tends to express his emotions too directly. The things that he likes and dislikes are easy to see, and he tends to handle things with a small group of his own people, not the majority of people.\u201d
During a parliament audit in 2013, Yoon, then a senior prosecutor, said he was under pressure from his boss, who said he opposed Yoon\u2019s investigation into an allegation that the country\u2019s spy agency had conducted an illicit online campaign to help conservative President Park Geun-hye win the previous year\u2019s election.
At the time, he famously said, \u201cI\u2019m not loyal to (high-level) people.\u201d
He was demoted, but after Park\u2019s government was toppled over a separate corruption scandal in 2017, then President Moon Jae-in made Yoon head of a Seoul prosecution office, which investigated Park and other conservative leaders. Moon later named Yoon the nation\u2019s top prosecutor.
Yoon only joined party politics about a year before he won the presidency, abandoning the liberal Moon after an impasse over a probe of Moon\u2019s allies. Moon\u2019s supporters said he was trying to thwart Moon\u2019s prosecution reforms and elevate his own political standing.
The 2022 presidential race was Yoon\u2019s first election campaign.
Yoon beat his rival, liberal firebrand Lee Jae-myung, by less than 1 percentage point in South Korea\u2019s most closely fought presidential election.
Their campaign was one of the nastiest in recent memory.
Yoon compared Lee\u2019s party to \u201cHitler\u201d and \u201cMussolini.\u201d Lee\u2019s allies called Yoon \u201ca beast\u201d and \u201cdictator\u201d and derided his wife\u2019s alleged plastic surgery.
Yoon\u2019s time as president has been dominated by frustration and acrimony, much stemming from his narrow victory and his party\u2019s failure to win control of parliament.
The liberal opposition\u2019s control of parliament will continue until he leaves office in 2027 after its resounding parliamentary election wins earlier this year.
Gridlock in parliament has led to an increasingly tense political discourse.
When Yoon declared the state of emergency, he said a goal was to eliminate \u201cshameless North Korea followers and anti-state forces\u201d that he said were plotting rebellion, in an apparent reference to the opposition Democratic Party.
During Tuesday\u2019s martial law announcement, Yoon highlighted his rivals\u2019 repeated attempts to impeach his top officials and their bid to curtail key parts of next year\u2019s budget bill as major reasons for his declaration.
Claims of corruption have also battered his approval ratings.
Last month, Yoon denied wrongdoing in an influence-peddling scandal involving him and his wife. Spy camera footage in a separate scandal also purportedly shows first lady Kim Keon Hee accepting a luxury bag as a gift from a pastor.
Choi said he thinks Yoon likely planned the \u201cclumsy martial law\u201d edict to divert public attention away from the scandals.
\u201cWhether he will be politically dead or not, he tried to massively shake up the political world,\u201d Choi said. \u201cBut he failed. He likely believed there was no other option.\u201d
North Korea has lashed out at his hard line
If political squabbles and scandal have set the tenor of Yoon\u2019s domestic presidency, its foreign policy has been characterized by a bitter standoff with North Korea.
Yoon early on in his presidency promised \u201can audacious plan\u201d to improve the North\u2019s economy if it abandoned its nuclear weapons.
But things turned sour quickly, as North Korea ramped up its weapons tests and threats to attack the South. By last year North Korea was calling Yoon \u201ca guy with a trash-like brain\u201d and \u201ca diplomatic idiot.\u201d
And for months now, North Korea has taken that trash theme literally, sending thousands of balloons filled with garbage over the border, including some that made it to the presidential compound in Seoul at least twice.
Yoon\u2019s mention of North Korea as a domestic destabilizing force reminded some of an earlier South Korea, which until the late 1980s was ruled by a series of strongmen who repeatedly invoked the threat from the North to justify effort to suppress domestic dissidents and political opponents.<\/p>\n