South Korean President Yoon vows to 'fight to the end'

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said he would “fight to the end” on Thursday 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 US ally into turmoil.

In a lengthy televised address the embattled leader of Asia's fourth-largest economy also claimed North Korea had hacked South Korea's election commission, throwing doubt on his party's landslide election defeat in April.

Yoon is hoping his political allies will rally to his support but this appeared less likely after his fiery address, with the leader of his governing People Power Party (PPP) responding the time had come for Yoon to resign or be impeached by parliament.

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 squarely.”

His comments were the first since he apologised on Saturday and promised to leave his fate in the hands of his political allies.

Yoon faces a second impeachment vote in parliament expected on Saturday, a week after the first one failed because most of the PPP boycotted the proceedings.

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 they should join the opposition to impeach the president.

“I propose we adopt a vote for impeachment as party policy. His address was akin to confessing to insurrection,” he said after watching Yoon's televised remarks.

Another PPP legislator, Jin Jong-oh, publicly declared support for impeachment on Thursday, bringing the total number to seven, YTN TV reported. At least eight PPP legislators are needed for the two-thirds majority required to impeach Yoon.

Even so, the party remains deeply divided and Yoon continues to have the backing of many PPP legislators.

Underscoring the divisions, the party chose a veteran legislator politically close to the president as its leader in the assembly by a majority vote on Thursday. Kweon Seong-dong said after his selection the party's official policy is to oppose impeachment.

A vote to impeach would send the case to the Constitutional Court to determine the legitimacy of Yoon's presidency, a process that could leave the country in political limbo for up to six months.

The president is also under criminal investigation for alleged insurrection over the December 3 martial law declaration, which he rescinded hours later, sparking the biggest political crisis in South Korea in decades.

In comments that echoed his justification for declaring emergency rule in the first place, Yoon said the “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 referring to the opposition Democratic Party which has blocked some of his proposals and raised allegations of government wrongdoing, but 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 called on members of the president's governing party to vote to impeach him.

Yoon spoke at length about an alleged hack by communist-ruled North Korea into the National Election Commission (NEC) last year, again without citing evidence. He said the attack was detected by intelligence agents but the commission, an independent agency, refused to co-operate fully in an investigation and inspection of its system.

The hack cast doubt on the integrity of the April election and led him to declare martial law, he added.

The NEC said it had consulted the National Intelligence Service last year to address “security vulnerabilities” but manipulating elections was “effectively impossible”.

Troops entered the election commission's computer server room after Yoon's martial law declaration, officials said and closed-circuit TV footage showed, but it was not clear if they removed any equipment.

Yoon's party suffered a crushing defeat in the April election, allowing the Democratic Party to have overwhelming control of the single-chamber assembly.

Even so, the opposition still needs eight PPP members to vote with them for the president to be impeached.

Yoon defended his decision to declare martial law as a “symbolic” move intended to expose an opposition plot to “completely destroy the country” and collapse the alliance with the US.

Reuters