welcome
BBC

BBC

World

World

The unravelling of South Korea's martial law president

BBC
Summary
Nutrition label

72% Informative

South Korea's Constitutional Court ruled Yoon Suk Yeol had abused his power by declaring martial law last December .

Yoon 's friends, confidantes, and political aides tell how he made the decision to trigger an authoritarian takeover.

From a young age, Yoon was "obsessed with winning", his oldest friend, Chulwoo Lee , told the BBC .

Yoon was selected as the presidential candidate for South Korea's conservative People Power Party .

After being endorsed by the party, Yoon 's politics lurched rapidly to the right.

He would make decisions spontaneously, in private, preferring to take advice from friends he went drinking with.

Yoon refused to sit down with the opposition leader to find a way to govern effectively.

He pushed ahead with unpopular policies and refused to apologise for his wife.

Yoon believed the opposition was taking orders from North Korea , or at least those who idolised the regime, never presented any proof.

Yoon talked repeatedly of how the opposition party was being run by Marxists , once comparing them to the Chinese Communist Party .

VR Score

77

Informative language

75

Neutral language

56

Article tone

informal

Language

English

Language complexity

43

Offensive language

possibly offensive

Hate speech

not hateful

Attention-grabbing headline

not detected

Known propaganda techniques

not detected

Time-value

short-lived

Source diversity

1

Affiliate links

no affiliate links