Speaker Woo Won-Shik was disappointed when he found that the number of voting members did not meet the requirement of two-thirds and that the result was therefore invalid.
It's very regrettable that a vote couldn't be held on a matter so crucial to the country, Woo said according to AFP, and accused the president's party colleagues of failing to participate in the democratic process.
A new vote on the impeachment process is expected to be held at the earliest on Wednesday. However, he may have been forced out earlier than that - According to South Korean Yonhap, leading representatives of the PPP have promised to push for the president to resign "in an orderly manner".
Tumultuous scenes unfolded when a large number of members from the ruling president's party, the PPP, left the National Assembly ahead of the vote on impeaching the president after Yoon Suk-Yeol had earlier in the week declared a state of emergency with accompanying martial law.
Traitors, go back in, chanted opposition parliamentarians to the PPP members.
Afraid of being judged?
The speaker was also angry.
This is to ignore the people's will, he said.
A little later, he appealed to the PPP representatives to come back.
South Korea is a democracy built on people's blood and tears. Are you not afraid of being judged by history, by the people, and by the world, he asked.
One member from the party stayed, and a little later, three more came back. But to pass the impeachment, the support of eight PPP members was needed.
The opposition, which has the majority in parliament, has 192 seats, but a two-thirds majority, 200 of the 300 members, is required to pass an impeachment process against a president.
Chanted demands
Outside the parliament, hundreds of thousands of demonstrating activists urged the pro-president members to go back into the chamber. They also shouted demands for President Yoon to be arrested and impeached, reports TT's correspondent.
Just hours before the vote, conservative Yoon Suk-Yeol held a speech to the nation, apologizing for declaring a state of emergency with accompanying martial law. This was done with reference to the liberal opposition paralyzing the government's work.
Since then, repeated demands for his resignation have been made.
South Korea's President Yoon Suk-Yeol, who belongs to the conservative People's Party (PPP), introduced a state of emergency late on the evening of December 3 to protect the country from "communist forces".
During the night towards December 4, the parliament, with the Democratic Party (DP) in the majority, voted to repeal the martial law, and the state of emergency was declared invalid.
President Yoon Suk-Yeol later announced in a televised speech that he would lift the state of emergency, which lasted a total of around six hours.
The opposition wants the president to be impeached, and the country's largest trade union has called for a general strike until he resigns.
