South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday lashed out at his political opponents as "anti-state forces," said North Korea has hacked the country's elections and defended his short-lived martial law order as a legal move to protect democracy.
His comments on Thursday came as the leader of Yoon's own party said the president had shown no signs of resigning and must be impeached.
He faces a second impeachment vote in parliament expected on Saturday, a week after the first one failed because most of the ruling party boycotted the vote.
"I will fight to the end," he said near the end of a lengthy address broadcast on television.
Yoon is under criminal investigation for alleged insurrection over the botched December 3 martial law declaration, which sparked the biggest political crisis in South Korea in decades.
Lawmakers broke through a police cordon, some by scaling the fence, to enter parliament and demand that Yoon rescind martial law within hours of the declaration.
In comments that echoed his justification for declaring emergency rule in the first place, he said the "criminal groups" that have paralyzed state affairs and disrupted the rule of law must be stopped at all cost from taking over government.
Yoon said the country's National Election Commission was hacked by North Korea last year, but the independent agency refused to cooperate in an investigation and inspection of its system to safeguard integrity.
He said the refusal was enough to raise questions about the integrity of the April 2024 election and led him to declare martial law.
Yoon's People Power Party (PPP) suffered a crushing defeat in the April election, allowing the Democratic Party overwhelming control of the single-chamber assembly. Even so, the opposition needs eight members of the PPP to vote with them for the president to be impeached.
Just before Yoon's televised address, PPP leader Han Dong-hoon said Yoon had to be stripped of power and the only way to accomplish that is for the party to back the impeachment bill.
Earlier this week, Yoon's former defense minister was arrested on allegations of playing a key role in a rebellion and committing abuse of power. He became the first person formally arrested in connection with the martial law decree.
Kim Yong Hyun, one of Yoon’s close associates, has been accused of recommending martial law to Yoon and sending troops to the National Assembly to block lawmakers from voting on it. Enough lawmakers eventually managed to enter a parliament chamber and they unanimously rejected Yoon’s decree, forcing the Cabinet to lift it before daybreak on December 4.
Some material for this report came from The Associated Press.
