High drama in Seoul as investigators try to arrest South Korea president Yoon Suk Yeol

In 2022, Yoon Suk Yeol, then a political novice, won the presidential election by the narrowest margin South Korea’s democracy had ever seen.

But he soon found himself mired in scandal. Much of it centred around his wife Kim Keon Hee, who was accused of accepting a Dior handbag from a pastor.

After the opposition won the parliamentary election by a landslide last April, Yoon was relegated to a lame duck president, reduced to vetoing bills.

With political challenges pushing his back against the wall, Yoon went for the nuclear option: a martial law order.

But, as evidenced by the string of events that followed – culminating in the attempts to arrest him today – that move has turned out to be a serious miscalculation.

Read more about Yoon Suk Yeol’s rise and fall.