SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol vowed Thursday to “fight to the end” as he faces calls to step down over his failed attempt to impose martial law, defending his actions and lashing out at his political opponents in a defiant speech.
In a lengthy national address, Yoon accused “anti-state forces” in the opposition-controlled parliament of paralyzing the government and undermining the rule of law. He largely repeated comments he made last week when he announced the surprise martial law order, saying it was necessary to protect democracy.
“The opposition parties are currently going berserk, claiming that the declaration of martial law equates to insurrection,” Yoon said. “Is what they claim true?”
Yoon apologized again “for causing surprise and anxiety” with his martial law declaration, and said that “whether they impeach me or investigate me, I will stand firm.”
Lawmakers are voting Saturday on a second motion to impeach Yoon, after the first one failed when members of his conservative People Power Party (PPP) boycotted the vote. The party’s leader appeared to reverse his stance after Yoon’s address on Thursday and said that the president must be impeached, although the party remains divided.
Yoon said the opposition had tried to bring down his administration by pursuing the impeachment of dozens of government officials since he took office in 2022 for a single five-year term, leading many to resign.
“Impeached officials are suspended from office for a long period of time — until the verdicts are handed down — even if they are found to be not at fault,” he said.
Characterizing the opposition as abusing their constitutional authority, Yoon said he decided to exercise his presidential authority in line with the country’s constitution.
He said his actions “were designed not to destroy the constitutional order and the constitution, but to protect and restore them, and to inform the public of this disastrous crisis for our country.”
Yoon said he discussed his plans to declare emergency martial law only with his minister of national defense, and that many of the staff and cabinet members he informed right before the declaration expressed opposition to it.
Without providing evidence, Yoon also said for the first time that communist-ruled North Korea, which technically remains at war with the South, hacked into South Korea’s National Election Commission last year.
He said the independent agency had refused to cooperate with investigators and inspectors seeking to safeguard its system, and that the inspections that were carried out found security shortcomings. Yoon said that raised questions about the integrity of the results of April’s parliamentary election, which the liberal opposition won in a landslide.
The National Election Commission, which was one of the places where martial law troops were deployed last week, disputed Yoon’s allegations.
“The presidential address confirmed that the martial law forces entered the Election Management Commission illegally and attempted to steal our server, which is an unconstitutional and illegal activity,” the commission said in a statement.
Yoon, 63, who once served as the country’s chief prosecutor, is under criminal investigation over the short-lived martial law declaration, which plunged the East Asian democracy and key U.S. ally into chaos. The order banned all political activity and censored the news media, and troops were deployed to the legislature in Seoul, the South Korean capital.
Lawmakers defied a security cordon around the building to vote unanimously to reject the order, which Yoon lifted early Dec. 4, about six hours after he announced it.
In his speech on Thursday, Yoon said “a contingent of fewer than 300 soldiers without lethal weapons” had been sent to the National Assembly “to maintain order” as large numbers of protesters and lawmakers rushed to the building after the martial law announcement.
He denied that the troops, who withdrew after the vote by lawmakers, had been deployed “to disperse the National Assembly or paralyze its functions.”
“Military officers have done nothing wrong,” Yoon said. “They were simply following my orders to move troops after the declaration.”
Yoon’s comments on Thursday were his first since he apologized for issuing the order on Saturday ahead of the first impeachment vote, saying he would leave his fate in the hands of his party.
The PPP says that Yoon has effectively been suspended from duty and that it will “restore order” by ensuring his early departure from office, working with Prime Minister Han Duck-soo in the meantime to manage state affairs. But opposition lawmakers and much of the public are demanding that Yoon step down immediately, with a survey released on Thursday showing more than 7 out of 10 respondents supporting his removal from office, according to the Yonhap news agency.
Yoon’s hold on power and his party appears to be slipping.
“Basically, the speech was a rationalization of this situation and de facto confession that he has committed rebellion,” PPP leader Han Dong-hoon said after Yoon’s address on Thursday. “I propose that PPP adopt voting for the impeachment as our party platform.”
Han added that he was ordering an emergency meeting to expel Yoon from the party.
“I believe this is the time to make clear where we stand,” he said. “This is a very serious situation, and what he said in his national address cannot be accepted by the people, and we also cannot accept it from the standpoint of democracy.”
The PPP’s newly elected floor leader, Kweon Seong-dong, said he continued to oppose impeachment as well as convening the ethics committee over Yoon’s party membership.
“I believe we should let the president decide for himself whether to stay with the party or leave it,” said Kweon, a veteran politician who is close with Yoon.
Roh Jong-myung, a spokesperson for the main opposition Democratic Party, said that while it was a positive sign that Han recognized the seriousness of the situation, “he is too late.”
The next impeachment vote is set to be held Saturday around 5 p.m. local time (3 a.m. ET). Though the opposition controls parliament, it is eight seats short of the 200 it needs for the bill to pass, and it remains unclear whether lawmakers from Yoon’s party will attend the vote.
If Yoon is impeached, he will be suspended from office while the Constitutional Court holds a trial, leaving the world’s 10th-largest economy in political uncertainty potentially for months.
Since the martial law declaration, lawmakers have also sought to impeach other officials accused of failing to prevent it, including the justice minister and national police chief.
A government spokesperson on Tuesday implored the opposition to refrain from further impeaching officials to avoid creating a power vacuum, noting that resignations had already left top public security positions vacant.
“We must prevent a situation in which stable governance becomes impossible,” said the spokesperson, Culture Minister Yoo In-chon. “Only then can we maintain trust with allies such as the U.S., Japan and other friendly nations.”
Stella Kim reported from Seoul and Jennifer Jett from Hong Kong.