South Korean President Yoon vows to 'fight to the end', defying impeachment threat
SEOUL, Dec 12 (Reuters) - South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Thursday he would "fight to the end" as his own political party shifted closer to voting with the opposition to impeach him over his short-lived martial law order that threw the U.S. ally into turmoil.
In a lengthy televised address, he alleged that North Korea had hacked South Korea's election commission, casting doubt on his party's landslide election defeat in April.
Yoon, whose country has Asia's fourth-largest economy, hopes political allies will rally to support him but this appeared less likely after his address. The leader of his ruling People Power Party (PPP) said the time had come for Yoon to resign or be impeached by parliament.
Late on Wednesday, six opposition parties led by the Democratic Party submitted a bill for Yoon's impeachment to parliament. A vote is expected on Saturday, a week after the first one failed because most of the PPP members boycotted.
At least seven members of the party were expected to support the new impeachment motion. At least eight PPP votes are needed for the two-thirds majority required to impeach Yoon.
Yoon said the opposition was "dancing the sword dance of madness" by trying to drag a democratically elected president from power, nine days after his aborted attempt to grant sweeping powers to the military.
"I will fight to the end," he said. "Whether they impeach me or investigate me, I will face it all squarely."
The remarks were his first since he apologised on Saturday and said he would leave his fate in the hands of his party.
His defiant new comments raise the possibility that Yoon, a career prosecutor and a legal expert, may have decided to take his chances to court, hoping to make a comeback.
"It appears that he just doesn't want to step down and is trying to hang in there as he still thinks he did the right thing," said Shin Yul, a Myongji University political science professor.
A vote to impeach Yoon would send the case to the Constitutional Court, which has up to six months to decide whether to remove him from office or reinstate him.
In the latest sign that Yoon is losing his grip on power, PPP leader Han Dong-hoon told a meeting of party members on Thursday that they should join the opposition to impeach the president.
The party remains divided and Yoon still has the backing of some PPP lawmakers who oppose impeachment.
Yoon is separately under criminal investigation for alleged insurrection over the Dec. 3 martial law declaration, which he rescinded hours later, causing South Korea's biggest political crisis in decades
In comments echoing his justification for declaring emergency rule in the first place, Yoon said "criminal groups" that have paralysed state affairs and disrupted the rule of law must be stopped at all costs from taking over government.
He was criticising the opposition Democratic Party which has blocked some of his proposals and demanded his wife be investigated over alleged wrongdoing. He gave no evidence of criminal activity.
A member of the Democratic Party leadership, Kim Min-seok, said Yoon's address was a "display of extreme delusion" and urged members of the president's party to join the impeachment vote.
NORTH KOREAN HACK
Yoon spoke at length about an alleged hack by communist-ruled North Korea into the National Election Commission (NEC) last year, without citing evidence.
He said the attack was detected by the National Intelligence Service but the commission, an independent agency, refused to cooperate fully in an investigation and inspection of its system.
The hack cast doubt on the integrity of the April 2024 election - which his party lost by a landslide - and led him to declare martial law, he said.
The commission said by raising the suspicion of election irregularities, Yoon was committing a "self-defeating act against an election oversight system that elected himself as president."
The NEC said it had consulted the spy agency last year to address "security vulnerabilities" but there were no signs a hack by North Korea compromised the election system.
Yoon won the presidency in March 2022 by the narrowest margin in South Korea's democratic history.
Troops entered the election commission's computer server room after Yoon's martial law declaration, officials said and closed-circuit TV footage showed. It was not clear whether they removed any equipment.
Yoon defended his decision to declare martial law as a symbolic move intended to expose an opposition plot to "completely destroy the country."
He denied ordering the blockade of parliament or trying to stop it conducting business.
That contradicted testimony by a military officer to whom Yoon gave the order to enter parliament and remove lawmakers gathering to vote to reverse the martial law declaration.
