South Korea's President is still in office. This man intends to push him out

Lee Jae-myung, who has been fighting legal charges that he says are politically motivated, now finds himself in a stronger political position than ever.

Seoul: Shortly after his political nemesis, President Yoon Suk Yeol, declared martial law last Tuesday, Lee Jae-myung began livestreaming from his cellphone. While driving to the National Assembly, the leader of South Korea's main opposition party appealed to Koreans to rush to the Assembly and hold back soldiers trying to seize parliament.

"You must protect the Assembly, the last line of defense for our democracy," Lee said repeatedly -- in a watershed moment for South Korean democracy and for his own political career. Lee's exhortation, relayed by YouTubers, helped attract crowds who slowed down the advance of troops and bought time for lawmakers to vote down Yoon's martial law​ decree, forcing the president to withdraw it after just six hours​​.

Lee, who has been fighting legal charges that he says are politically motivated, now finds himself in a stronger political position than ever. His party holds the majority in the Assembly and he represents what most South Koreans want: Yoon removed from office. Polls show he is most favored to win if a presidential election is held now.

With political turmoil still roiling around him, Lee looked calm and in control this week -- and determined to oust Yoon quickly. But his party's first attempt to impeach Yoon failed Saturday, when the president's party boycotted the parliamentary vote. Lee's Democratic Party plans to organize an impeachment vote every Saturday.

"We will keep doing this until he is impeached," Lee said in an interview at his Assembly ​office Monday. "More people are joining in the struggle with growing fervor. We will try to get this done by Christmas."

Yoon has been barely seen since his martial law collapsed​. ​Prosecutors are investigating whether Yoon committed insurrection -- a crime punishable by death or life imprisonment -- when he sent troops into the Assembly. The Justice Ministry has barred ​him from leaving the country, raising the possibility that he could become the first South Korean president to be arrested while in office. But there is confusion over who will run the government if he were to be jailed. ​

Yoon's abrupt and baffling decision to put his country under military rule for the first time in 45 years was driven, in a way, by the country's increasingly polarized politics: He both despises and fears Lee and his progressive opposition, which ​has dominated the Assembly​ throughout his term. South Korean politics have long been fractured, but the clash for power​ between Lee​ and Yoon​ has been magnified by their differences.

Lee, whose parents made a living cleaning public toilets, was a teenage sweatshop worker before becoming a human rights lawyer, civic activist and politician who spoke for ​the poor. ​But his detractors called him a "populist."

Yoon is the son of a college professor, attended an elite university and became a star prosecutor ​who helped imprison two former presidents. As leader, he pushed for business-friendly policies​ while his critics called him out of touch​ with ordinary people.​

Lee's speech sounds practiced and methodical. Yoon tends to ramble and brag.

In the 2022​ election, Yoon beat Lee by a razor-thin margin​. His government has since hounded Lee with a series of ​corruption and other criminal​ charges. Lee contests them, calling Yoon's government a "dictatorship by prosecutors."

Lee won his second great contest against Yoon when his party won a landslide victory over the president's People Power Party in parliamentary elections in April. His Democratic Party used its majority power to block bills and budget plans by Yoon's government and to try to impeach many of Yoon's political appointees. ​

As Yoon's popularity tumbled amid policy blunders and scandals involving his wife, Yoon declared martial law to end the opposition's "legislative dictatorship." But it proved his worst -- and irreparable --​ mistake.

"Yoon was angry because he could not have his way, so he tried to become an absolute monarch, a king," Lee said.

Yoon's move to declare martial law ​showed how emotion-driven and dangerous South Korea's political polarization has become. Lee ​s​urvived a stabbing attack by a right-wing extremist in January. But Lee said Yoon's martial law revealed more flaws in Yoon's "impulsive" character than in South Korean democracy.

​"What he did was so preposterous that it made people wonder whether he was in his right mind," Lee said.

When his wife showed him live footage of Yoon declaring martial law Tuesday night, Lee said he told her it was a "deepfake." Once he realized it was not, he used an online group chat to urge his party members to rush to the Assembly. He and other lawmakers climbed over the walls and fences to enter the Assembly, while angry citizens tussled with the police and troops.

"I was live on YouTube all the time," Lee said. "I knew I could be arrested by troops, but I thought people ​at least could watch me detained."

Events in recent years have deepened worries about a cycle of political vengeance that has ​consumed South Korean politics and presidents.

Older conservative South Koreans who hold pro-Yoon rallies in downtown Seoul call Lee a communist criminal who must be locked up. Political commentators have blamed Yoon and Lee for intensifying political polarization, citing their inability to reach compromise.

Throughout his time in office, Yoon has barely responded to Lee's repeated offer to meet, while Lee's party has used its majority status to stymie Yoon's policies.

Lee blamed Yoon for the toxic political environment, calling himself the "victim" of political revenge exacted by the president.

"I know that the end result of this endless cycle of political vengeance is civil war," he said. "The president has a responsibility to use his power to unify the nation, not as a tool of venting personal emotions or promoting his personal interests."

Lee said he would ​end the vicious circle if he becomes president.

On Saturday, the opposition needed only eight votes from the governing party to impeach Yoon or pass a bill calling for a special prosecutor to investigate allegations against the first lady. Lee's failure to get them was testament to how the country's political gridlock has hardened.

In the wake of Yoon's failed martial law, some of the ruling party's senior leaders have resigned. Lee said the governing camp has been in such a disarray that he could not get hold of party chair Han Dong-hoon or know who could speak for the party with authority. Yoon's party did not respond to requests for comment.

It has become impossible and too dangerous to try political negotiations anyway, Lee said, other than to keep persuading ruling party lawmakers that following the party line was taking "a road to treason."

He said Yoon is desperate to hold on to whatever power is left, while Han is eager to ​expand his own influence.

"They don't trust each other and they fear each other," Lee said. "They are holding each other's neck with one hand while ​brandishing a grenade with the safety pin off on the other."

Lee said his party was still reaching out to individual lawmakers to get the votes it needs to impeach Yoon.

"The dam will eventually break," he said​. "We will have a bloodless revolution."