With the Constitutional Court review of his impeachment and the criminal investigation on his insurrection charges separately underway, the next chapter in President Yoon Suk Yeol’s life is being decided. We may not see the text for months, but given the gravity of his botched martial law order on Dec. 3, Yoon is unlikely to return to office. Thus, he would be added to Korea’s infamous roster of presidents fallen in disgrace.

While history will remember how Yoon rattled the nation’s hard-won democracy and fatally wounded his own future, the reasons for it all may be traced to the beginning of his term.

Within a few days of his narrow election win in March 2022, Yoon announced an audacious plan to relocate the Defense Ministry so that the presidential office could move into its compound. Soon thereafter, he disclosed another arbitrary decision: relocate the presidential residence from the Blue House to that of the foreign minister. The actions were loud hints at how the Yoon presidency would operate.

Both plans befitted the time when Korea was ruled by kings. They lacked any consultations or blueprint to adjust the facilities for presidential duties and foreign affairs. The moves were hurriedly done, causing disruptive consequences.

Particularly, the relocation of the Defense Ministry necessitated a chain of relocations for the headquarters of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and some key military units, potentially risking national security and costing an astronomical amount of taxpayer money. Yoon asserted that his decisions were aimed at gaining easy access to the public and ending the “imperial presidency,” while rumors ran rampant that the moves were dictated by geomantic predictions.

Yoon explained that his relocated office would be more conducive to impromptu Q&A sessions with reporters. But he soon distanced himself from the news media after his first major international trip, six months into his term, blew up. A “hot” microphone picked up Yoon using an expletive to refer to US lawmakers in New York, and in London he did not pay his respects to Queen Elizabeth II, who was lying in state, for unknown reasons. Also, plans for an extended meeting with US President Joe Biden dissolved into an encounter lasting less than a minute on the sidelines of a multilateral forum.

Yoon soon targeted journalists and news organizations that criticized him, accusing them of spreading “fake news” but never revealing the “facts.” This supposedly is when he became addicted to far-right social media conspiracy theories, eventually convincing himself to instantly silence press critics and political opponents by declaring martial law.

Then came a fatal disaster during the Halloween celebrations in Itaewon, a popular Seoul neighborhood, the following month, in which 159 young people were killed in a crowd crush. Grieving families were enraged at the authorities who had failed to prepare for the large-scale gathering and ignored emergency hotline pleas when the crush began.

The government simply insisted that it was not responsible for public safety at privately organized festivities, and Yoon blamed officers in the field and refused to apologize. However, suspicions arose that the police were overburdened with the security of the presidential office, which had moved near to Itaewon. Yoon’s seemingly insensitive handling of the tragic catastrophe intensified public outrage and his downward spiral in popularity polls never recovered.

Over the next two years, scandals and inexplicable policy decisions continued to estrange Yoon from the electorate. He confronted, rather than pursued dialogue and compromise with, diverse groups and lost their trust -- one group at a time. They included farmers, metal workers, railway and subway workers, school workers, doctors, nurses and marines, as well as opposition politicians.

As if anger about policy was not bad enough, Yoon’s troubled presidency was constantly overshadowed by criminal allegations and scandals surrounding his wife, Kim Keon-hee, known for her deep reliance on shamans and fortunetellers as well as meddling in state affairs. Yoon’s single-minded determination, moral impunity and judicial injustice in protecting his wife against accusations by opposition parties deepened partisan animosity.

Curiously, Yoon’s martial law declaration came a week before a scheduled vote by the opposition-majority National Assembly to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate allegations of stock manipulation and other criminal acts by Kim. Yoon had already vetoed three similar attempts.

Within the last five years, Yoon has had three distinct profiles: star prosecutor, president and now criminal suspect. The constant has been his defiant character. But neither his uncompromising personality nor his unconditional love for his wife can be blamed as the sole cause of the extreme partisan polarization and political paralysis that has pushed the nation into chaos. Rather, it is a lack of acceptance of basic democratic norms.

To preserve democracy and advance the nation, politicians across party lines must engage in mutual tolerance and restraint instead of partisan fight-to-the-death maneuvering. They must regard political opponents not only as rivals but also as partners for cooperation and compromise. If the halls of government could be more like the streets filled with peaceful rallies, the nation could rebuild its wounded democracy with a new persona. Outside, younger generations who do not always agree are sharing warmth and camaraderie -- beaming rays of hope for the future of Korean democracy.

Lee Kyong-hee

Lee Kyong-hee is a former editor-in-chief of The Korea Herald. The views expressed here are the writer's own. -- Ed.