The South Koreans are always confusing on the reasons for which their leader declared the martial law

Seoul (AP) – Dance and console hugs. Wild oops and anxious cries. Tears, both joy and rage. Reaction to Verdict of the Court ousted Friday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was a lively window on the country’s deep political divisions, while tens of thousands of opponents and supporters of Yoon broadcast their feelings in downtown Seoul.

While South Korea now turns to elect a new president, this division should only harden. It will be particularly exposed because both sides will try to answer a question about the Night of December 3When conservative decreed martial law, putting itself on the Road to dismissal and the loss of the presidency:

What was he thinking of?

Yoon was confronted with politicians in Korean type in North Korea, determined to destroy the democracy of South Korea, according to his supporters. No, no, the liberals maintain: he tried to divert the attention of the surveys on corruption on him and his wife. Or maybe he was in the balance of Youtubers across the right Who claim that the Liberals overthrew the electoral process?

This national attempt to choose the wreckage of Yoon’s decision to send heavily armed soldiers to surround, the National Assembly will be in the foreground while a violently fractured southern fracturing begins a fierce campaign to elect a new president in the two months.

The deployment of troops in the streets of all democracy is serious. But it is particularly sensitive in South Korea, where memories of military domination from the 1960s to the 1980s are fresh.

And this decision also revealed the country’s fault lines, along policy, national security, social position, economy, sex and age.

The division is intrinsic to the history of origin of South Korea. The Korean peninsula was divided into north and southern halves in 1945 by Soviet and American troops, officially derailed in 1948 when the two Koreas became independent countries, then separated militarily into the demilitarized zone at the end of the Korean War in 1953.

The fractures will probably worse as the presidential election campaign is gaining strength.

Yoon supporters say he was thwarted by the opposition

Yoon supporters tend to supervise the decree of martial law as a crucial tool for a president thwarted in each turn by the Liberal Opposition Democratic Party, which controls Parliament.

Kim Min-Seon, a supporter of Yoon, said that it was the only way to manage the Liberals blocking Yoon’s efforts to combat the alleged campaigns of Pyongyang and Beijing to threaten the democracy of South Korea through cyber attacks, disinformation and technology flight. The Democratic Party denied these accusations.

“I firmly condemn the Democratic Party of Lee Jae-Myung, which is an evil axis,” said Kim in a recent rally. Lee, the head of the opposition, is the archrival of Yoon and considered to be the presidential track.

The fears of the supporters of Yoon are still fed by false complaints concerning electoral fraud.

On December 3, Yoon sent troops to the offices of the National Electoral Commission to investigate vulnerabilities presumed to its computer systems which, according to him, could affect the credibility of elections.

Such complaints are not founded and there is no evidence of electoral fraud, but it is worrying that the specter can undermine confidence in the future elections.

“It is undeniable that we have had electoral fraud, and the president made a crucial decision to exhibit such massive reprehensible acts,” said Kwon Kyung-Hee, another supporter of Yoon, during a rally this week.

Yoon’s criticisms say that he was influenced by conspiracy theories

Many Yoon criticisms see something incredibly different: an increasingly leader In the grip of conspiracy theories This depicts him as a victim of an opposition in Nordic North mode.

Instead, they say, he was just a inept politician, unable to work with rivals to get things done.

“The taxation of the president of the martial law was a terrible political decision taken by a former insane prosecutor who confused compromise against surrender and dialogue for the interrogation,” said Choi Hyun-Seok, an office worker in Seoul.

But others see a reason closer to their home, accusing Yoon of being desperate to protect himself from corruption surveys.

Park Chan-Dae, chief of the Democratic Party, said that the Decree of the Martial Law of Yoon was probably an attempt to conceal “shameful” allegations about Yoon and his wife who had dropped the President’s approval notes.

The scandal revolves around the allegations according to which Yoon and First Lady Kim Keon Hee illegally influenced the conservative power party to select a specific candidate for a parliamentary partial election in 2022 at the request of the electoral broker Myung Tae-Kyun. Yoon denied any reprehensible act by him or his wife.

Park noted that it was December 2 when Myung, facing the threat of criminal proceedings and a meticulous examination, revealed that he would put a phone that contains communications with Yoon and Kim.

“The prosecutors charged Myung Tae-Kyun a day later, and Yoon Suk Yeol said martial law on the same day,” said Park at a party meeting in January. “Isn’t that too coincided to be rejected as a simple chance?”

It is not immediately known how the Myung’s scandal played in the influence on Yoon’s decree, which, according to the investigators, had prepared for months.

Prosecutors’ accusation acts say rather that Yoon was pushed to martial law by disputes with the opposition on budget cuts, attempts to indulge against his allies and the theories of the unleaded electoral fraud conspiracy. Although they also briefly mentioned that Yoon discussed the scandal with his Minister of Defense.

The party of Yoon – which is in disarray following the decision of the court – and the opposition – of which the chief also faces several surveys on corruption – have great challenges to come.

And the stakes could not be higher for South Korea: the way in which the political deadlock will take place will determine its democratic future, but also its relations with the nuclear armed northern, a new protectionist in the United States and its main trading partner but a neighbor’s worried neighbor.

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The correspondent of Associated Press, Hyung-Jin Kim, contributed to this story.