South Korea’s president defends short-lived martial law decree, rejects impeachment efforts

South Korea’s president defended his martial law decree as an act of governance and denied rebellion charges Thursday, rejecting the opposition-led impeachment attempts against him and investigations into last week’s move.

Yoon Suk Yeol’s televised statement Thursday came hours before the main liberal opposition Democratic Party was to submit a new impeachment motion against Yoon. The opposition party plans to put the motion on a floor vote this Saturday.

Its earlier attempt to impeach Yoon fell through last Saturday, with ruling party lawmakers boycotting a vote at the National Assembly.

Yoon’s Dec. 3 martial law declaration, the first of its kind in decades in South Korea, has generated political chaos and protests calling for his ouster. The decree brought hundreds of armed troops attempting to encircle parliament and raiding the election commission, though no major violence or injuries occurred. He was forced to lift it about six hours later.

“I will fight to the end, to prevent the forces and criminal groups that have been responsible for paralyzing the country’s government and disrupting the nation’s constitutional order from threatening the future of the Republic of Korea,” Yoon said.

Yoon, a conservative, said his martial law introduction was meant to issue a warning to the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, which he said has been paralyzing state affairs and destroying the country’s constitutional order. He said the deployment of less than 300 soldiers to the National Assembly was designed to maintain order, not dissolve or paralyze it.

‘A knife dance of chaos’

Yoon called the Democratic Party “a monster” and “anti-state forces,” which he said repeatedly tried to use its legislative muscle to impeach top officials, undermine government budget bills and sympathize with North Korea.

“The opposition is now doing a knife dance of chaos, claiming that the declaration of martial law constitutes to an act of rebellion. But was it really?” Yoon said.

Yoon said his martial law decree was an act of governance that cannot be the subject of investigations, he said, and doesn’t amount to rebellion.

It’s unclear how Yoon’s statement would affect his fate. Earlier Thursday, the leader of his own conservative party, Han Dong-hoon, said Yoon was making it clear he had no willingness to step down voluntarily and called for party members to vote in favour of his impeachment at the upcoming National Assembly vote.

Opposition parties and many experts say the martial law decree was unconstitutional. A president is by law allowed to declare martial law only during wartime or similar emergency situations, but they say South Korea wasn’t in such a predicament. They argue that deploying troops to seal the National Assembly to suspend its political activities amounted to rebellion because the constitution doesn’t allow a president to use the military to suspend parliament in any situation.

Yoon’s statement was seen as an about-face from his previous position. Last Saturday, he apologized over the martial law decree, saying that he wouldn’t avoid legal or political responsibility for it. He said he would leave it to his party to chart a course through the country’s political turmoil, “including matters related to my term in office.”

On Wednesday, Yoon’s office resisted a police attempt to search the compound.

The main focus of the investigation is finding whether Yoon and other top military and government officials involved in imposing martial law committed rebellion, for which a conviction carries a maximum penalty of death.

Earlier this week, Yoon’s former defence minister was the first to be formally arrested over the decree, on allegations of playing a key role in a rebellion and committing abuse of power.

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 Dec. 4.