The president of South Korea, clinging to office, continues his flight forward a week after declaring martial law for six hours and plunging his country into the biggest political crisis since the democratic transition in the late 1980s. In a new televised speech without questions, with a serious gesture and a red tie, Yoon Suk-yeol, still head of state, defended his actions this Thursday as an “act of the Government”; He has rejected the charges of insurrection of which he is accused in an ongoing investigation; has once again raised the specter of North Korean interference in public affairs. And he has assured that he will fight to the end, whatever that epilogue may be: the aforementioned investigation that places him as the leader of the plot or a new impeachment motion in the National Assembly, which the opposition registered this Thursday and intends to vote on Saturday.
Yoon has justified that sending troops to the National Assembly during martial law cannot amount to insurrection and has defied calls for resignation launched from the ranks of the opposition – also, from those of his own party, the conservative People’s Power Party. (PPP)—, and by the citizens who have taken to the streets for a week to demand his fall. Yoon has detailed before the camera that he used his presidential power “to protect the nation and normalize the affairs of the State” against an opposition that had paralyzed the Government. The decision was the result of a “highly calibrated political judgment,” he said, according to the South Korean Yonhap agency.
This is the second time that the president has spoken officially since he suspended the order to take military control of the country. The president was forced to back down after Parliament reversed his decree in an emergency vote, while the military laid siege to the National Assembly, with orders to prevent it from taking place and arrest political leaders. If last Saturday, in his first speech, he apologized for the chaos caused, and confessed to having made the decision out of “despair,” this time Yoon brandished a more combative tone: “Whether they impeach me or investigate me, “I will face it impartially,” he said.
The head of state has accused the opposition of obstructing his government with impeachment attempts and cuts in next year’s budgets: a “frantic dance of swords,” he has called it. The opposition center-left Democratic Party is the main force in the House, which has made governance of Yoon’s PPP difficult since he took power in 2022. “The National Assembly, dominated by the large opposition party, is has become a monster that destroys the constitutional order of free democracy,” the president denounced. The PD controls 171 seats of the 300-seat Parliament, compared to 108 for the ruling party.
Yoon has also once again pointed out, without evidence, an alleged North Korean plot that would be putting the country at risk. On December 3, when he declared martial law, he claimed that he did so out of the need to protect the constitutional order from anti-state activities, and accused the opposition of being a “pro-North Korean force,” but without giving more details. On this occasion, he has questioned the credibility of the last elections and has revealed that he ordered former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, arrested a week ago for his involvement in the crisis, to check the Electoral Commission’s voting system. National. The president alleged that the system may have been compromised by alleged cyberattacks by North Korean hackers.
“I will fight until the last moment alongside you,” Yoon reiterated, apologizing once again for the inconvenience caused to citizens with the brief imposition of martial law. The president, 63 years old and with a long career as a prosecutor, famous for his fight against corruption, before making the leap into politics, has assured that only “a small number” of unarmed soldiers were deployed in Parliament to “ maintain order,” and were asked to withdraw as soon as parliamentarians approved the resolution ending martial law.
The role of the military
The role of the military and the orders they received will be one of the central questions of the insurrection investigation that Yoon faces. The head of the South Korean Special Forces Command, Kwak Jong-keun – suspended from his duties and subject to a travel ban – who was in charge of the troops deployed in the Assembly, said in an appearance in Parliament on Tuesday that he received a call from the president ordering him to “break down the door and remove the legislators” from the chamber before they carried out the vote that ended up reversing martial law. When some of the commanders resisted, Kwak weighed the issue: “I thought they were absolutely right. I decided that it was not right for our troops to go in, because they would commit crimes and too many people would be hurt if we forced entry.”
Yoon’s public appearance comes at a time when the leader is on the ropes. On the one hand, the investigation against him is advancing: the Police went on Wednesday to search the presidential offices, including the office of the head of state, although in the end they barely managed to secure evidence, after being prevented from entering; The authorities of the Office of Investigation of Corruption of Senior Officials, in charge of directing the investigations, are already evaluating the arrest of the president. On the other hand, the opposition bloc redoubles pressure to hold another vote on Saturday to remove him.
It remains unknown whether or not this new procedure will succeed. The leader of the ruling party, Han Dong-hoon, who from the beginning has distanced himself from martial law and Yoon, showed this Thursday his support for an eventual dismissal. It represents a change in position: until now he had defended an orderly departure of the president, with his resignation, but within an undetermined period. Han has asked his fellow members to vote on the motion according to their conscience. For it to go ahead, a two-thirds majority of the chamber is needed – that is: 200 of the 300 deputies – so the opposition bloc requires the support of at least eight parliamentarians from the governing party. In last Saturday’s motion, the recount was not even carried out, after the PPP boycotted the vote with all but three of its members leaving the chamber. The next one promises to be a new vertigo session: seven deputies from the president’s party have assured until this Thursday that they will give their support to remove him.
