Opinion | The expulsion of the South Korean president will not heal a fractured nation

My South Korean parents and I have an excellent relationship. They embraced my marriage between people of the same sex-one unusually progressive attitude in our country-they join me and my husband on the go. We can openly discuss anything.

Except Korean politics.

I am convinced that Yoon Suk Yeol, a former conservative president of South Korea, did the right thing in December when, while he was in office, he tried to do it impose martial law and arrest opposition politicians. His move has thrown the nation in crisis, another chapter of intense and often useless political antagonism that has swallowed the country in recent years.

When I called my parents the day after the failed attempt of Mr. Yoon, that inconcitation national division was also evident in my otherwise harmonious family: I condemned the clearly non -democratic, who revived memories of the past military domain; My father praised him as necessary to curb the opposition, which he considers pro-North Korea.

The half -cooked plot of Mr. Yoon escaped a few hours. He was quickly accused and suspended by the assignment. A Rule Friday From the Constitutional Court of the Nation has made its removal permanent.

The inability of the bizarre scheme of Mr. Yoon was greeted in South Korea and abroad as a triumph for democracy. There is nothing to celebrate here. South Korea is divided as alwaysAnd the whole matter should be a clear warning for democracies wherever what happens when political polarization escapes control.

South Korean policy has long been afflicted by a profound split that derives largely from the ten -year division of the Korean peninsula between North and South. This divided the South Koreans into two opponent’s anti-communist political fields led by an authoritarian elite that favors a hard line against North Korea and a left flashes field that supports reconciliation with Pyongyang.

After decades of military dictatorship, South Korea has finally reached full democracy in 1987 and the nation prospered. But that line of base fault below has expanded to the point that the two parties that now dominate the politics-the party of Popular Power of the right of Yoon and the Democratic Party of opposition on the central left-to see each other as enemies closed to fight until death. It is a battle fought with the assassination of the character, the accusations and now a new previous set by Mr. Yoon’s Resort to martial law. The task of governing the nation took the place.

Mr. Yoon is only the last of a long series of presidents demolished in this “Game of Thrones” environment. During the educational decades of the nation, the electoral manipulation and state strokes (and an assassination) were the standard means by which the presidents got up and fell. After democracy has taken hold, the tactics have softened, but the same old game remains, an infinite cycle of political revenge more characteristic of a banana republic than a developed democracy.

Yoon has been the third president since 2004 to be accused (the first of these has been canceled) and the four presidents before him faced criminal investigations, generally led by the opposing party. Two of them went to prison and another, Roh Moo-Hyun, skipped at his death In 2009, just over a year after leaving the assignment, while public ministries closed.

The absurd thing is that many strangers would probably have difficulty distinguishing the two parts. Both main parties invoke nationalism in asking for a strong South Korean defense, both ties With the powerful commercial empires controlled by the family known as Chaebol, both worry about the dive of the nation’s budget, and neither of the two is progressive enough to defend the rights of sexual minorities like me.

The awareness is here that we may no longer live in a true democracy. In the wake of the flask of martial law, Choi Jang-Jip, a famous scholar of Korean democracy, described South Korea as “democracy without politics“, Whose parties are in a state of” almost civil war “and the index of the global democracy of the economist of the Economist South Korea lowered In February from an “complete democracy” to an “imperfect”. Mr. Yoon is senseless Excuse me For what he illustrated how democracy has lost its meaning here: he says that he tried to break the “legislative dictatorship” of the Democratic Party, which contrasted his agenda at each turn – in short, destroying democracy to save him.

As was predictable, the polls show that the South Koreans have low levels of trust in political system AND the impartiality of the mediaWhich pushes people to online sources such as YouTube, where they enjoy false news in their Eco rooms.

Instead of buzzing the country from this without exit path, the Yoon saga has only further divided the Koreans. For weeks, while the Constitutional Court has deliberated, the hostility of the United States-Counter took place on the streets in almost daily protests in which each side has demonized the other. In addition to the generational gap seen in my family, the South Koreans are divided along the genre lines: demonstrations against Mr. Yoon have been remarkable for the many young women in their ranks, while young people seem extraordinarily attracted to the pro-yoon gatherings. As title In a prominent newspaper he put him in March, “families, lovers and friends are divided” by the relationship.

The new elections must be held within 60 days of the Constitutional Court sentence. But it is unlikely that the change of those who are responsible for the task of ensuring that the Falized political factory puts aside its inano quarrels and faces urgent national concerns such as a crisis of housing accessibility or how to navigate in a dangerous world that President Trump is only worsening.

The polls indicate that a solid majority of South Koreans want a change of government. This is likely to favor the Democratic Party, whose leader, Lee Jae-myungIt was the driving force of frustrating Mr. Yoon in Parliament. Consequently, Mr. Lee is insulted by the conservative field. It was almost killed last year by a man who brandishes the knife-that was radicalized According to the nation policy – and was offending for corruption and other criminal accusations by the Department of Justice of Mr. Yoon.

The putrefaction in South Korean politics is too deep to be curated by a single sentence or election of the court. If the politicians and electrics of the country cannot learn to reflect, speak and compromise, the “game of Thrones” will remain and the democracy will dry.

Se-Woong Koo is a writer and journalist born in South Korea. He founded Exposé Korea, an online magazine focused on Korean news, and taught Korean studies at Yale University from 2013 to 2014.

The Times is engaged in publication a diversity of letters to the publisher. We would like to hear what you think of this or any of our articles. Here are some suggestions. And here is our email: Letters@nytimes.com.

Follow the Opinion section of the New York Times on Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Bluesky, WhatsApp AND Discussions.