Yoon’s Far-right Legacy Continues To Polarise South Korea

On 4 April 2025, the Supreme Court of Korea unanimously upheld the National Assembly’s impeachment of former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol, ending a dramatic saga that began with Yoon’s botched declaration of martial law in December 2024. Yet the outcome of this impeachment process, combined with South Korea’s status as an economically advanced democratic nation, has obscured the concerning and persistent influence of far-right elements in its political landscape.

While a majority of citizens turned out in massive protests against Yoon’s actions, vocal members of the conservative People Power Party and fervent far right groups have organised persistent counter rallies in his defence, even storming a district court in an attempt to delay legal proceedings. A February 2025 survey found that nearly four in ten South Koreans were against Yoon being impeached, suggesting that his support base may not be as marginal as it appears.

Far-right politics in South Korea stems from a deeply rooted tradition of extreme ideological polarisation. Since gaining independence in 1948, Korea’s conservative political leadership has often harnessed the fear of communism to consolidate their fragile hold on power. The Korean War, along with the enduring threat of attacks from North Korea, entrenched anti-communism as a powerful ideological barrier to left-wing mobilisation.

Within this dynamic, any form of progressive opposition could easily be framed as a threat to societal stability. And political democratisation in the late-1980s — initiated under a conservative establishment — did little to significantly weaken these dynamics or the far-right’s influence in politics.

In response to successive transfers of power to moderate liberals in the early-2000s, the so-called ‘New Right’ emerged. Aiming to replicate the success of pro-democracy activists and their grassroots mobilisation tactics, conservatives established powerful networks of far-right civic and religious groups and publishers to drive popular engagement. Yoon tapped into this latent force, elevating New Right forces who whitewashed South Korea’s authoritarian past and framed the progressive opposition as ideological enemies, anti-state actors and North Korean sympathisers.

With a background as a prosecutor, Yoon approached national governance with a similar black and white worldview. Yoon viewed his critics across civil society, the National Assembly and the media not as democratic interlocutors but as guilty criminal forces to be punished. As his policy agenda stalled in parliament, Yoon accused the opposition of secretly working on behalf of North Korean interests to bring him down.

A consistent throughline in support for Yoon’s politics has been the unusual intersection of two demographic groups — young male voters and elderly citizens. Young men have been at the forefront of protests and violent clashes in support of Yoon, starkly contrasting with younger women who overwhelmingly lean liberal and have been at the heart of protests calling for Yoon’s impeachment. Those over the age of 60 have also become an important voting base for the conservative party and key consumers of far-right online content and conspiracy theories.

This phenomenon can be largely attributed to a shared sense of economic disillusionment. In a job market dominated by irregular work, an overwhelming majority of young people are striving to secure stable employment in large corporations or the civil sector — a path that demands exceptional resumes. The lack of safety nets has intensified competition to a near life-or-death struggle for many young jobseekers. The rise of feminism and the #MeToo movement has further fuelled perceptions among young men that they are being unfairly disadvantaged in this ultracompetitive environment, particularly due to their mandatory two years of military conscription.

South Korea’s underdeveloped social welfare system has left it woefully unprepared to support its rapidly aging population. The country has consistently ranked highest in elderly poverty among OECD nations, with government statistics showing that over 38 per cent of seniors live in relative poverty. This demographic not only faces economic precarity but also carries vivid memories of the intense political polarisation that followed the Korean War, making them particularly susceptible to political rhetoric that stokes ideological paranoia against the left.

Yoon skilfully exploited this shared sense of deprivation felt by both groups, with his strongman governing style and imposition of martial law resonating with disillusioned men drawn to the patriarchal promise of order and control. To appeal to young men, Yoon framed feminism as an insidious force, even attempting to dismantle the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. For the elderly, Yoon stoked red scare anxieties, reviving Cold War-era fears and conspiracies of North Korean aggression that had once defined their reality.

Despite the Supreme Court upholding Yoon’s impeachment, the former president and his supporters remain defiant. South Korea finds itself in a precarious situation, where those who attempted to dismantle democracy claim to be fighting to ‘save the country’. This psychological warfare is likely to persist, especially as Yoon will remain in the limelight with further legal proceedings not only for his insurrection attempt, but also for obstructing arrest and corruption scandals.

Yoon’s impeachment has done more than test South Korea’s political institutions — it has plunged an already disillusioned public into a deeper state of disorientation and polarisation. History shows that each time South Korean democracy has been pushed to the brink, the people have mobilised to claw it back. But with an increasingly divided citizenry, South Korea’s current trajectory points towards intensified partisan conflict, threatening to erode national cohesion for many years to come.

Christopher Khatouki is Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales.

Source: East Asia Forum