(Bloomberg) — South Korea’s impeached leader is barricaded in his Seoul residence, protected by a blockade of buses, barbed wire, crowds of supporters and his own armed security guards. The question now is whether investigators can arrest him without a violent confrontation.
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Senior leaders of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials are mulling just how to peacefully bring President Yoon Suk Yeol into custody, five days after they gave up on their first try to haul him in for questioning over his failed bid to impose martial law last month.
The longer the standoff lasts, the more doubt will be cast over the ability of the CIO to carry out its probe into the president. Yoon is under investigation following his brief imposition of martial law last month, a move that blindsided the nation and its allies, whipsawed markets and hit growth expectations for Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
Still, a rushed effort to haul in Yoon that leads to violence could also shake confidence in South Korea’s ability to deal peacefully with its biggest constitutional crisis in decades, just days after Secretary of State Antony Blinken lauded Seoul for its peaceful and lawful response to the political crisis.
“It will have a catastrophic impact on the country if it’s shown you can defy an investigative agency with a legitimate court-issued warrant,” lawmaker Chun Ha-ram of minor Reform Party said in a radio interview with South Korean broadcaster CBS. “Even more troubling would be showing that you can resist with physical force through the possession of weapons.”
A handful of fatalities during the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye occurred amid confrontations between members of the public and police. The latest flashpoint pitting investigators and police against the presidential guard over the arrest of a sitting leader is unprecedented in South Korea.
Yoon’s representatives say the arrest warrant is invalid and illegal because the CIO has no legal authority to investigate insurrection charges and arbitrarily chose a judge in a different district to improve its chances of obtaining it.
The CIO has encountered criticism for its unsuccessful attempt to take Yoon in for questioning on Friday and its apparent flip-flop on Monday over whether to ask the police to take the lead on carrying out the arrest.
Oh Dong-woon, head of the CIO, apologized to the public on Tuesday for the investigators’ failed move.
“I promise we will thoroughly prepare to make sure there’s no such setback in our second attempt,” Oh told a parliamentary session. He also vowed to make any second go at detaining the president the last attempt, a comment that ramps up the need for more preparation to ensure the success of the operation.
The reluctance of the police to take the lead in arresting Yoon without their own warrant points to the concerns among officials about who would take responsibility for another failed attempt to detain him or any violence that might kick off.
One approach the CIO and police might explore to defuse the likelihood of a physical altercation is the detention of key personnel in Yoon’s security team.
Police officials are already reviewing whether to arrest members of Yoon’s security team on site if they try to prevent efforts to detain Yoon again, Yonhap News reported, citing an unidentified police officer. The head of the presidential security service has defied multiple police summons to appear for questioning, raising the possibility of his own arrest, Yonhap said.
The Reform Party’s Chun and some other politicians say law enforcement authorities should exercise their power to take the president into custody even if that results in a physical confrontation.
“You say the presidential security staff is coming at you with guns, that there’s a risk of them firing and unfortunate events happening. But open your chest and tell them to shoot. You need to go with that kind of determination,” Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Sung-yoon told Oh at a parliamentary meeting on Tuesday.
In any confrontation, the police presence is likely to outnumber those in the president’s security team.
Hong Sung-gul, professor of public administration at Kookmin University in Seoul, said the chances of violence remain low at this point as any bloodshed could quickly escalate uncertainties and make it more difficult for the main opposition to keep the situation under control.
“The Democratic Party’s only goal is to hold a presidential election as soon as possible and install Lee Jae-myung as president. Bloodshed will not help them achieve that goal in any way,” Hong said.
South Korea’s Acting President Choi Sang-mok earlier said citizens and civil servants on duty should not be harmed in the process of law enforcement. But he has refrained from actively exercising his power to give guidelines as government agencies collide over the president’s possible arrest.
Following its impeachment of Yoon and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo in December, the Democratic Party has sought an investigation into Choi for alleged dereliction of duty for not taking action. But the party risks rekindling support among conservatives for Yoon if it keeps resorting to impeachment or parliamentary votes against acting leaders, analysts said. Already there’s an uptick in some opinion polls for the ruling party following the impeachment of the prime minister.
How aggressive the law enforcement authorities will turn in their second attempt will likely hinge on the public reaction to the ongoing saga, Kim Hee-kyoon, law school professor at the University of Seoul, said.
“Police will make the call to mobilize force if they feel pressured by the public,” Kim said.
