Category World News

Seoul, South Korea: After six hours of emergency martial law, hundreds of days of protests, violence at a Seoul court, and President Yoon Suk-yeol’s eventual impeachment, the country is now hours away from appointing a new leader in an effort to restore stability to an unrest-stricken nation.

South Koreans will cast ballots for one of the five presidential candidates on Tuesday, between 6 am and 8 pm (21:00 to 11:00 GMT), in a race that is largely led by Lee Jae-myung, a member of the opposition Democratic Party. Kim Moon-soo, the People’s Party candidate, leads him in the polls.

Both of these two leading contenders are expected to take Yoon’s place in the 44.39 million eligible vote. The ex-president was last week a witness to his fifth court hearing where he is accused of launching an insurrection and abusing power because of his failure to impose martial law on December 3.

Yoon could receive the most severe punishment, including life in prison or even the death penalty, if found guilty.

In light of the political unrest brought on by the brief enactment of military rule, which still resonates in every aspect of society and has sharply divided the country along political lines, voter turnout is expected to be at an all-time high in the election. Those who continue to back Yoon and those who vehemently oppose his declaration of martial law.

Lee is currently the clear front-runner in the Democratic Party, with People Power Party Kim’s 36% and Lee’s 49 percent in Gallup Korea’s most recent poll on May 28 declaring him the favorite to win.

Voting started early on Friday, which ended with the second-highest turnout in the country’s history, at 34.74 percent, while overseas voting from 118 nations reached a record high of 79.5%.

Second chance for Lee Jae-myung

In the most recent presidential election in South Korea’s history, Yoon narrowly won with a 2-0 lead over Lee.

Lee now has a second chance at the top office and a chance to improve his political reputation following his humiliating defeat in 2022, which came with a narrow 0.73 percent of the vote.

In violation of election law, the Supreme Court of South Korea ruled about a month ago that Lee had spread false information during his presidential campaign for 2022.

Lee also survived a stabbing attack to his neck during a news conference in Busan last year, in addition to surviving a number of bribery allegations during his time as mayor of Seongnam and governor of Gyeonggi Province, which he claimed were politically motivated.

The courts have fortunately agreed to postpone any further hearings of Lee’s ongoing trials until after the election.

This time around, Lee addressed his supporters from behind bulletproof glass while counterterrorism units were patrolling on foot as snipers patrolled the crowds for potential threats.

Conservative lawmakers, his former adversaries, who have publicly supported his run for office numerous times in the last month, have also joined his campaign and seen him as a route back to political stability.

Kim’s parliamentary colleague, Kim Sang-wook, left the party in early May to join Lee’s Democratic Party, which was a particularly humiliating blow.

Only 55% of conservative voters who voted for Yoon in the 2022 election said they would support Kim this time around, according to polling data from Hankyoreh, the country’s top media outlet.

These shifts reflect the mainstream conservative party’s crisis, which is also evidenced by Lee’s appeal to both moderate and conservative voters.

Future president is “heavy burdened” with.

According to Lim Woon-taek, a sociology professor at Keimyung University and former member of the Presidential Commission on Policy Planning, “the events of the martial law, insurrection attempt, and impeachment process have dealt a severe blow to our democracy.”

According to Lim, “the new president will be saddled with a lot of baggage when taking office,” Lim said.

Youth unemployment, social inequality, and climate change are all pressing issues that Yoon’s administration failed to address.

Last year, non-regular employees in South Korea, including contract workers and part-timers, made up 38% of all wage and salary workers, according to recent research.

Lee has pledged to support business-friendly policies and to concentrate on investing in artificial intelligence and research while avoiding putting an emphasis on gender conflicts in social issues.

His political stance has significantly changed since he first promoted left-wing ideas like a universal basic income while moving up the political scale.

Events that occurred on the night of the December 3 declaration of martial law also contributed to Lee’s reputation as a leader of political freedom. Lee, a former human rights lawyer, was live-streamed circling the National Assembly compound to urge other legislators to vote and reject Yoon’s call to mobilize the military.

Lee’s most important campaign pledge was to tighten controls on a potential president’s ability to do the same and prosecute those who were tied to Yoon’s martial law scheme. Additionally, he wants to see a constitutional amendment that would change the current five-year term to two, which was previously only one-term.

Kim, Lee’s closest rival, has concurred with these policies and kept a distance from Yoon, but the former labor activist-turned-hardline conservative has also claimed that the former president’s impeachment was inappropriate.

Trump, tariffs, and the new course of South Korea

Trump’s proposal to impose tariffs on important South Korean exports like steel, semiconductors, and cars also affects the election.

In response to those threats, Kim and Lee both pledged to ease business regulations while Lee has promised to encourage growth and demand. Kim also emphasized that he intends to discuss the tariffs with Trump right away at a summit.

On the other hand, Lee has promised a more logical foreign policy plan that would promote both maintaining US relations with the administration and promoting “national interests” like boosting cooperation with neighbors China and Russia.

Kim has pledged to increase the country’s military might in order to combat Pyongyang, and Lee wants more security support from the US, while Lee is determined to ease tensions that have reached unprecedented levels in recent years.

Sejong City, the country’s new administrative capital, would be the location of the National Assembly and the presidential office, according to Lee, a move that has come under the guise of a series of setbacks in recent years.

The climate situation is another significant issue that Keimyung University’s Lim hopes the future leader will concentrate on more, according to Lim.

If we don’t take action right away, Lim warned that “our country is regarded as a climate villain” and that we will face future restrictions on our exports.

The fate of our nation will ultimately depend on which president will address these issues like the previous administration, or whether they will confront the media and jump right into the main problems that are afflicting our society.

The results of Tuesday’s vote are anticipated to be released either later on Tuesday or early on Wednesday morning.

Yoon was declared the winner of the 2022 election at 4:40 am the morning following the election.

The outcome might be known as early as Tuesday night because Lee is the clear winner in this election.

In preparation for a rushed cremation in the Sagaing district of Myanmar’s Sagaing region, near India, flying over the blackened and swollen bodies of men and boys lying side by side on a piece of tarpaulin.

Quickly arranged wooden logs formed the base of the mass pyre, with several worn-out rubber tyres burning alongside to sustain the fire, the orange and green wreaths just out of reach of the flames.

The Indian Army killed three of the ten members of the larger People’s Defence Forces (PDF), three of whom were teenagers.

The National Unity Government (NUG), Myanmar’s government-in-exile, includes members of the National League for Democracy party, a Nobel Laureate, and lawmakers who were removed from the coup in 2021.

It mostly assists the PDF – a network of civilian militia groups against the military government – which serves, in effect, as the NUG’s army.

The Indian Army reported that on May 14, a battalion of the country’s Assam Rifles (AR) paramilitary force was “suspected to be involved in cross-border insurgent activities” while patrolling a border post in northeast India’s Manipur. According to the Indian Army, the battalion was “acting on particular intelligence.”

The Indian soldiers were stationed at the border in Chandel, a district contiguous with Tamu on the Myanmar side of the frontier. For the past two years, ethnic groups have been fighting in Manipur, and Indian authorities have frequently charged Myanmari migrants with stoking those tensions.

The exiled NUG claimed its cadres were not killed in an armed encounter within Indian territory, but they disagreed with the Indian version of the May 14 events. Instead, it said in a statement, they were “captured, tortured and summarily executed by” Indian Army personnel.

Political analysts and observers of conflict have reported that resistance groups operating in Myanmar, along its 1,600km (994 miles) border with India, have come to terms with an understanding that both sides have effectively minded their own business for almost five years.

The deaths in Tamu have since altered that, sending shockwaves through the exiled NUG, dozens of rebel-armed groups, and thousands of refugees who have fled the conflict in Myanmar to seek refuge in northeast Indian states. They now fear a spillover along the wider frontier.

According to Thida*, who works with the Tamu Pa Ah Pha, or the People’s Administration Team and organized the rebels’ funeral on May 16, “Fighters are in panic, but the refugees are more worried… they all feel unsafe now.” She requested a pseudonym to be used to identify herself.

Meanwhile, New Delhi has moved over the past year to fence the international border with Myanmar, dividing transnational ethnic communities who have enjoyed open-border movement for generations, before India and Myanmar gained freedom from British rule in the late 1940s.

With India in our neighborhood, “we felt safe,” said Thida. We are now very concerned about similar things happening to the Indian forces, the officer said.

“This never happened in four years]since the armed uprising against the coup], but now, it has happened”, she told Al Jazeera. Therefore, there may be a second or third time as well as a first time. That is my biggest concern.

Proactive or passive action: what?

After their previous positions were exposed to the Myanmar military, the PKP’s 10 cadres arrived at their newly established camp in Tamu on May 12. A senior NUG official and two locals based in Tamu independently told Al Jazeera that they had alerted the Indian Army of their presence in advance.

Thida remarked that “the AR personnel visited the new campsite] on May 12. They were kept informed of our every move.

What followed over the next four days could not be verified independently, with conflicting versions emerging from Indian officials and the NUG. The narratives released by Indian officials also contain contradictions.

In a gunfight in the New Samtal area of the Chandel district on May 14, the Indian Army’s eastern command claimed that its troops were acting on “intelligence” but that “they were fired upon by suspected cadres”.

Two days later, on May 16, a spokesperson for India’s Ministry of Defence said that “a patrol of Assam Rifles” was fired upon. They also recovered seven AK-47 rifles as well as a rocket-propelled grenade launcher as retaliation for “ten individuals, wearing camouflage fatigues.”

The Defense Ministry identified the dead as PKP cadres five days later, on May 21. The ministry spokesperson further noted that “a patrol out to sanitise the area, where fence construction is under way along the]border], came under intense automatic fire”, with the intent “to cause severe harm to construction workers or troops of Assam Rifles to deter the fencing work”.

A retired Indian government official who has been providing advice to New Delhi on its Myanmar policy for ten years pointed out the contradictions in the Indian translations: Did Indian soldiers actively respond to intelligence alerts or were they responding to an attack by Myanmar-based rebels?

Making sense of these killings is challenging. This is something that has happened against the run of play”, the retired official, who requested anonymity to speak, said. He claimed that “a mistake occurred, perhaps in the fog of war,” given the contradictions.

It can’t be both a reactive operation and retaliation.

Al Jazeera requested comments from the Indian Army on questions around the operation, first on May 26, and then again on May 30, but has yet to receive a response.

The [PKP cadres] are not combat trained, or even armed enough to imagine facing a professional army, according to Thura, an officer with the PDF in Sagaing, northwest of Myanmar.

‘ Taking advantage of our war ‘

Local Tamu authorities rushed to the Indian Army when they learned of the deaths on May 16.

A Tamu official, who was coordinating the bodies’ handover, claimed that “Assam Rifles had already prepared a docket of documents.” He requested anonymity. “We were forced to sign the false documents, or they threatened not to give the corpses of martyrs”.

The PDF cadres were killed in a gunfight in Indian territory, according to three documents from the docket, which imply consent to the border fencing.

The Tamu People’s Administration Team and NUG officials have repeatedly asked Indian officials to reconsider the border fencing, according to Thida from the organization.

“For the last month, we have been requesting the Indian Army to speak with our ministry]referring to the exiled NUG] and have a meeting. Stop the border fencing process until then, she urged.

While our nation is in a crisis, Thida said it is simple to take advantage of the killings. And, to be honest, we cannot do anything about it. How can we engage in combat with the large Indian Army because we are the rebels in our own country?

Thida expressed her heartbreak before going on to say it. “The state of corpses was horrific. She recalled that inside the body, insects were growing. Indian forces should respect our dead without sacrificing anything.

Border fence worries

Angshuman Choudhury, a researcher focused on Myanmar and northeast India, said that conflict observers “are befuddled by these killings in Tamu”.

He claimed that it was “counterintuitive” and that nothing should have happened.

The border fencing, according to Choudhary, is a perennial issue. “It has always caused friction along the border. And he referred to it as “violent fiction” because there are significant territorial misunderstandings between opposing groups.

Indigenous communities in northeastern India’s Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh were shocked when New Delhi first took the initiative to end the free movement system, which allows residents to travel across borders. Members of these communities live on both sides of the border with Myanmar – and have for centuries.

Due to the freedom to travel back and forth, the border communities on either side agreed to the idea of India and Myanmar. According to Choudhary, erecting physical infrastructure creates a kind of anxiety in these transnational communities that demarcation on maps does not.

“By fencing, India is creating a completely new form of anxieties that did not even exist in the 1940s, the immediate post-colonial period”, Choudhary said. It will “create completely unnecessary forms of instability, uglyness, and widen the existing fault lines.”

Amit Shah, the Indian home minister, stated last year that border fencing would help “maintain the demographic structure” of the areas bordering Myanmar and ensure India’s “internal security.” This was widely accepted as a response to the conflict in Manipur.

Since May 2023, ongoing ethnic violence between the Meitei majority and the Kuki and Naga minority communities has killed more than 250 people and displaced thousands. The government has refuted allegations that the state administration is promoting furthering the unrest in order to gain support for the Meitei population.

Both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the state-run government in Manipur have accused undocumented migrants from Myanmar of contributing to the increase in ethnic tensions.

Now, with the killings in Tamu, Choudhary said that Indian security forces had a new frontier of discontent, along a border where numerous armed groups opposed to Myanmar’s ruling military have operated — until now, in relative peace with Indian troops.